Was In The Spring (Then Spring Became Winter)
by cadutadalcielo
Summary: Boston, 2011: Emma is a bail bondsperson living the routine of someone who can manipulate time and has to hide it from the rest of the world. When Regina Mills asks for her help, Emma decides to give the mysterious woman the benefit of the doubt... Which means going back in time to find Regina's runaway son and, surprisingly, the answers she has been looking for her whole life. AU
1. Chapter 1

**WAS IN THE SPRING (THEN SPRING BECAME WINTER)**

 **CHAPTER ONE**

SUMMER 2011

Emma Swan. Daughter of no one, mother of Someone, ex-con, college dropout, part-time bounty hunter.

Emma Swan, whose surname is nothing but a fairy tale, the product of a nine-year-old girl's desperate hope for a happy ending.

Emma Swan, who improvises as a magician when her bails are particularly hard to catch.

What she's doing right now is precisely that. She's currently in the middle of State Street in Boston – the same street she's performed in for the past year-and-a-half, ever since she's found out that her innocent looks and natural propensity at deceiving people could be more fruitful than she'd first imagined. It's the busiest street of the city, the infinite passers-by desperate for a distraction from the repetitive string of clothing stores, bars and buildings. Her target is no different.

She walks on the sidewalk along with the unstopping stream of people, nothing more than another face in the crowd, watching her pray from afar and blending in perfectly until –

 _Poof!_ – a cloud of white fog, handily provided by Halloween stores smoke bombs, envelops her and elicits a choir of "Aah!", "Ooh!" and a wide variety of imprecations from both pedestrians and drivers who are forced to stop their vehicles because of the suddenly-compromised visibility.

The area immediately around her has cleared, the more-curious-than-scared bystanders now facing her, forming an almost-perfect circle around her automatically. The fog is dispersing, its particles floating away and allowing the traffic to resume its flow, which doesn't happen, because even the annoyed drivers are now abandoning their cars and trying to peek through the sea of heads, desperate to understand what all the commotion is about.

And as the smoke finally clears, revealing a blonde ponytail and anonymous clothes, Emma starts her performance.

Eye contact is the most important part, she has learned over time, and she surveys the crowd in search of the man she's seen countless times in pictures, mostly accompanied by a four-digit number: the amount of money _Nick's Bail Bonds_ will give her once she catches the guy. _There he is_. He's between an elderly woman and an attractive brunette, and as soon as his gaze locks with Emma's, she's sure she's going to succeed.

"Welcome!" she bids, a wide smile plastered on her face that, she hopes, also reaches her eyes. "I assume you've seen countless magic shows, haven't you? Always the same: a dude turning a 'magic wand' into a bouquet of flowers, pulling a bunny out of a top hat, making a napkin disappear in his fist.

"If that's what you were expecting from _my_ show, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.

"You see, I don't do _tricks_." She interrupts her opening monologue to address specifically the young children gathered in the front row, excitement spilling from their wide grins and bright eyes. "I make _real magic_." To crown her statement, with a flourish she produces a deck of playing cards in the palm of her hand – and, right on cue, the children erupt in gasps of bewilderment and elation.

Turning her attention back to the rest of the crowd, she inquires, "I will need some help for this part of the show. Are there any volunteers?" The audience looks uncomfortably at each other, some muttering encouragements to their companions but nobody actually offering to join Emma at the center of attention. "Come on, don't make me choose…"

Once again, the only reply she receives is a shy silence, which she had anticipated, of course, and is now going to use to her advantage.

The man she's here for is looking at her. For the second time, their gazes meet, and Emma makes sure to hold it for a second before pronouncing, "You." She doesn't break eye contact until he has shuffled his way through the crowd and reached her, and even then it's just for a split second – to glance briefly at the woman who's followed him but stopped at the front row, the same brunette who was standing next to him earlier. Emma looks at her because the man's profile hadn't mentioned a protective girlfriend, when she had accepted the case from her boss, and it angers her. She should know details as relevant as this, they're essential to the approach she's going to take with her targets. A girlfriend is going to be a problem.

But she will figure something out – she always does.

Finally diverting her attention from the woman, Emma looks back at the man and asks, "What's your name?" as if she doesn't already know.

"Ryan."

"Everybody give it up for Ryan!" she announces, and the audience excitedly claps its support.

At that, Emma spreads out the deck in her hands, making sure all of the cards are facing down and Ryan can't see any of them, and orders, "Pick a card – any card," because there's nothing more cliché than that, "look at it and show it to the crowd – but not me."

He wordlessly complies, and as he does, Emma takes a deep breath. She mentally prepares for what's about to happen and, as she exhales, she snaps her fingers.

The world around her stills.

She doesn't have much time, now; barely enough to look around at the unmoving people around her – some caught mid-blink, others completely absorbed in the performance, with their eyes transfixed on either Ryan or Emma herself. She can hear the honks of cars in the distance, because even after twenty-eight years of practice she hasn't mastered her powers enough to stop time further away than a two-mile radius from her. Not without completely draining her vital energy, anyway.

She almost jumps when her gaze lands, once again, on that woman – the brunette, the potential girlfriend – because she's looking straight into Emma's eyes, and she could swear she hadn't been doing that before. She would have noticed those eyes. It would be impossible not to – they are so _alive_ , so _full_ …

But she can't afford to dwell too much on those thoughts, because her heartbeat is already starting to quicken and her head to spin; so she flashes a look at the card the man has been showing the crowd for the past twenty seconds (but really, barely an instant) and snaps her fingers once again, triggering that portion of the world back into motion.

Continuing her performance, Emma slips Ryan's card back into her deck, puts it aside and makes a show of touching his temples with her forefingers and pretending to concentrate, before announcing, "Two of spades!"

The cheering and applauding of the crowd is oddly encouraging; it boosts her confidence, even though she knows very well that the whole show is a sham. The praise, the approval that the audience is giving her is something she has longed for her whole life; growing up in the foster system, being bounced from a group home to another has never allowed her to make someone proud. Now, despite knowing that it is completely based on a lie, she revels in the appreciation shown her by the group of complete strangers in front of her. She knows it's silly, but she can't bring herself to care.

That's why she allows herself a couple more moments of glory. In a rush of recklessness, she pushes off her duty as bail bondsperson and shows off for a little while longer, engaging in a couple more tricks, this time without the aid of Ryan, that have the crowd absolutely enamored with her and her skills.

Nonetheless, Emma is quick to get back on track, her professional persona back in control.

"Alas, this show is nearing its end," she declares. "Although it might not seem like it, my talents are not limited to sleights of hand. In fact, I am primarily competent in something very different: I am particularly good at _stealing_." The crowd gasps quietly and some murmuring begins.

"Oh, no, there's no need to check your pockets or purses – I don't steal objects. I steal _people_." The crowd is silent, hanging onto every word spilling from Emma's mouth. "Ryan, would you please join me again?" The man hesitantly walks back to Emma, who asks, "Tell me, are you here with someone, today?"

"No," is his reply, which leaves Emma confused, because she thought the brunette was in some way associated with him. She's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, and since that saves her the trouble of having to figure out a way to get rid of her, she is more than happy to accept such luck.

"Wonderful. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid this show is finally approaching its end. And what respectable magic show doesn't culminate with a grand finale?

"It's not going to be a flock of doves taking flight or a curtain dropping. I am going to make this man and myself disappear." She laughs at the worried looks sent her way. "Don't worry, it's completely safe.

"I'm sure most of you don't believe I can do this." The statement is met with nods of confirmation, so she continues, "You see, this is not about the magic per se; it's about attention, about timing and…"

She pauses dramatically. "… Surprise."

White smoke engulfs her and Ryan, this time provided only by her powers, rather than gimmicks. The last thing Emma sees before teleporting away is a wonderstruck crowd and that brown-haired woman, staring directly at her, utterly unfazed.

* * *

The bug needs repairing.

Her beautiful, trusty bug had left her stranded that morning, refusing to move from its spot in the underground garage of her apartment building, so she had had to call the mechanic. "Something wrong with the engine," he had said, and proceeded to tow the car away and charge her five-hundred dollars in advance. That was half of what she had made by getting Ryan in jail the previous day.

That's why she's currently sitting at a bar, opposite a new target her boss has assigned her, delivering her order to the waiter: she needs money.

Though, no magic shows, this time around. It's been a tough decision to make, but a necessary one nonetheless.

That woman Emma had seen the previous day had left her uneasy; she had spent the better part of that morning – and of that night she has a feeling, though she can't remember exactly – thinking about those eyes. Eyes of a brown so dark they almost looked black, and not surprised in the slightest.

Emma is afraid, to be honest. She is afraid of what that woman might know, of what she might want from her, of _who she is_.

Emma's powers have been a part of her life ever since she was little. She doesn't actively remember _them_ , but she does remember foster family after foster family giving her up as soon as magic came into play. Which is understandable, considering that magic isn't even supposed to exist in this world. They were afraid, she imagines. Afraid of the incidents that could happen, of the power she had that was entirely out of their control. Surely they didn't care enough to think that maybe she was scared too.

On the bright side, the fear of being sent away eventually overcame the fear of her powers, urging her to control them rather than repress them; and by the age of eight she had already mastered them enough to keep them hidden, even from the foster brothers she shared a bedroom with.

Then, in her teens, she made the mistake of reading the _X-Men_ comics, where mutants were persecuted, captured and experimented upon, and the paranoia of meeting that same fate scared her enough to drop out of the foster system and live on her own, away from anyone who could potentially harm her or discriminate against her. Until she met _him_ , that is; the only person she had ever truly gotten attached to, the man who ran away as soon as she ignored the fair warning those comics had imparted to her and opened up enough to show him what she could do. She was pregnant and seventeen years old, when he left her; she has made sure not to trust anyone ever since.

During the past ten-or-so years, the complete absence of anything even remotely hinting at the government knowing about her powers and wanting to conduct experiments on her had pretty much erased her fears. Six years ago, after having saved up enough money to afford an apartment on her own, she resumed practicing her magic; and whilst it had begun in the safety of the four disheveled walls of her flat, soon enough she had become so proficient that her abilities to control time and travel through it couldn't be limited to such a restricted area. Like Icarus, she wanted to fly higher, to put herself to the test and see how close to the sun she could get before her wings started melting off.

That was when she decided to hide her powers in plain sight. They had turned out to be profitable, an easy way to get a target, and she knew that pretending to be a magician would be the perfect cover: society was entirely too skeptical to think that there was more to her performances than simple tricks.

But now – now that her old paranoia of Adamantium being forced inside her body and such has come back in full force – she has decided to lay off the magic shows, at least for the time being, and avoid drawing attention to herself. Maybe she has flown too close to the sun at last, and needs the wax of her wings to re-harden, before going back up.

She's back to the old "pretend date" approach – boring, but safe. She hopes.

It's only with half an ear that she listens to what Jeremy is saying; she's too wary to pay his words full attention. She has been ever since her last show, and the situation is getting almost unbearable.

But then, her brain registers her date's next question, a confused, "Hey, do you know that woman?" that has her heart rate instantly quicken. When she follows his gaze, she sees the very object of her thoughts sitting at the counter and talking to a waitress. "She's been staring at you since she arrived. I feel like she heard me, just now, and looked away on purpose."

Well, now what?

Emma's heart is pounding – she's sure one could see her shirt moving with each palpitation. Should she go up to her? Confrontation has never been her strongest suit, but staying in the dark doesn't sound like much of a solution, either. If the brunette did effectively tell her she worked for the government, at least she could run away or put up a good fight. She's pretty sure she could win, with her kind of powers.

Well, it's not like she has much to lose, anyway. _Here goes nothing_ …

As Emma replies with a determined, "I do," the woman looks away from the waitress and straight into her eyes. "I'll be back in a second."

Emma heads over to her, feigning a confidence that she doesn't have, and sits down on the stool immediately to her left, desperately hoping her heartbeat isn't as loud as she thinks.

"Why are you stalking me?" She's proud of the bluntness of her voice, of how it doesn't quiver for a second.

A sharp eyebrow arches and plump, red lips – marked by a barely-there scar – part. "I beg your pardon?" The woman looks sincerely confused, and borderline affronted at receiving such an accusation from a stranger.

Has Emma considered the fact that maybe she has just been reading a bit too much into this? That the brunette in front of her might be just some random woman from Boston, innocent as she claims to be and as far from knowing about her powers as the next person?

She's starting to blush in embarrassment under the woman's scrutiny, and she's so sure of having just made a fool of herself that she snaps her fingers just to have enough time to make up a good enough excuse to justify her behavior. 'I thought you were someone else' might work, right?

But then, although everyone and everything around her is unmoving, stuck in the moment Emma has decided to elongate, she sees the woman's lips curl upwards just slightly, in a knowing smirk that has Emma's skin prickle with worry and frustration, and she realizes she hasn't gotten anything wrong at all.

This woman is aware of Emma's powers and immune to them.

Emma might just be in even more trouble than she'd initially thought.

As Emma goes on gaping, her focus starts to fade, until the world is back in motion. The brunette turns her body towards Emma's and crosses her legs. She waits patiently for Emma to gather her bearings, and after a few more moments of hesitation, the blonde manages to croak out a wary, "Who are you?"

"My name is Regina Mills," the brunette promptly replies. "But that is of little importance. I think a more appropriate question would be _why_ am I here, don't you agree?" At Emma's blank stare, Regina rolls her eyes. "Close your mouth, dear, you're drawing flies."

Emma complies immediately, a little flushed from having made a fool of herself. Nevertheless, she can't muster a proper sentence – her brain doesn't seem like it wants to collaborate, at least not for the time being. The bar is spinning – or is it her head? – and she feels floaty in a way that makes you wonder, for a split second, if you're dreaming.

Yet no, the woman in front of her is perfectly still, if not for the fingers tapping impatiently against the counter, as everything else twists and turns and…

"Are you quite done?" Regina snaps.

 _Doing what?_ Emma wants to ask, but a quick glance around is enough to answer. She realizes, as her mind finally starts to clear, that the people around her are, in fact, moving back and forth – only not because her head is spinning, but because she has been rewinding and fast-forwarding time for the past few minutes.

Emma finally manages a small, "Sorry," and holds onto that small bit of rationality just enough to take control of her powers. "What do you want from me?"

The other woman looks quickly from side to side, her eyes stilling on the waiter right behind the counter and close enough to hear what they were saying. As Emma turns to look at the young redhead, she sees her stealing glances at them, clearly eavesdropping.

"Let's take a walk, shall we?" Regina prompts, and before she knows it, Emma is being dragged out the bar, her arm enveloped in the firm yet gentle grip of the other woman's hand.

"Hey!" she protests, but before she can elaborate her complaint, she hears someone call her name.

"Emma!" Her date is running out the bar, confusion displayed on his features, clearly not understanding why she would leave without telling him.

"Sorry, dear. Miss Swan is busy and won't be able to conclude your date. Get lost."

"What? No!" Emma forces her arm out of the other woman's grasp, annoyed by her patronizing attitude. "I'm not going anywhere with you, lady."

"You wanted to know why I'm here, did you not? How do you expect me to humor you, if you don't allow me to take you somewhere secluded enough to avoid having an audience?"

"And how do you expect me to trust a complete stranger who not only knows my name, but is also immune-"

" _Shut up_ ," another frantic look around. There's nobody near them, and Emma's target isn't close enough to hear what they're discussing, but Regina insists anyway. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. Not in public."

"Listen, lady," Emma says, a hand automatically running through her hair, "I want to finish this date more than I want to listen to you. Whatever it is you want from me, I am not interested."

A cold, calculated façade overtakes Regina's features, annoyance covering the offense that Emma still manages to see. She crosses her arms on her chest, lifts her chin up and defiantly says, "We shall see."

* * *

It's been three days since Emma's date with Jeremy. She has delivered him to Nick and received her part of the bail, which means she isn't broke anymore. Regardless, she's on edge, because it's also been three days since she has last heard from that Regina Mills, or since she has last seen her, and she hasn't been able to keep her mind off of her.

She's been wondering whether or not she has made the right choice by not listening to what the other woman had to say. After all, if she had wanted to harm her, she would have done so. Unless she weren't planning to come back _now_ , maybe followed by a trail of government agents ready to neutralize Emma, in case she put up a fight.

It's not that she is scared, per se. Yes, the fact that Regina was completely unaffected by her time-bending powers is worrying, but Emma is sure she can take her anyway. She is used to hand-to-hand, after all, and Regina is a fairly small person. Like, at least one whole inch shorter than Emma.

Yes. She can _definitely_ take her.

She's running some errands as these thoughts swirl through her mind. After a quick run at the grocery store (she is out of _Froot Loops_ , and the situation was so tragic earlier that morning, that she even skipped breakfast) she's now at the Laundromat down the street, because even public washing machines are better than her building's.

More than once, during the boring-yet-reassuring repetitiveness of the past three days, Emma has found herself craning her neck and turning her head in hopes of spotting Regina Mills' luscious, bouncy bob, or straining her ears whenever she heard a low, husky female voice.

Today is no different. She is currently sitting on top of an unused washing machine, a crossword puzzle in hand as she desperately tries to kill time. There is nobody she can talk to. Every other time she has found herself in a similar situation, she made small talk with whoever was stuck with her. Alas, this time, the only other living thing in the room is a rat that's been running back and forth for the past five minutes, and as much as Emma is tempted to try and prove herself wrong, she doesn't think he's much of a conversationalist.

Maybe it's her constant need to have something to keep her entertained that makes having nothing to do particularly difficult to bear. And maybe it's exactly this that urges her to carefully look around, move in front of the only working washing machine so that nobody can see it from outside, and speed up time.

She limits the enchantment to that room only, constantly casting glances around to make sure nobody is close enough to risk being caught in that time-warp. She doesn't think anyone can tell something's off, since the entire room is perfectly still, if not for the washing machine and _that rat_ , but she keeps checking anyway, for good measure.

It's for that reason that she jumps in surprise when she hears a voice behind her comment, "Well, isn't that convenient?"

"How- when- how did you get in here?" Emma inquires, her eyes now glued to the woman that's been haunting her standing casually next to the dryers. "I was just watching the entrance; I haven't heard nor seen anyone come in…"

"Let's say I have my ways," is Regina Mills' response, as cryptic as it is dismissive. "Good morning, Miss Swan."

Emma is lost in disbelief. Here this woman is, suddenly popping out of nowhere and greeting her as if the circumstances of their encounter were perfectly normal. And the worst part of it is that Emma _doesn't mind_.

What she does mind is how bluntly rude Regina Mills' response was, and the fact that she got distracted, therefore the room is no longer in fast-forward. The rat is sitting in its corner and chewing something at its ordinary speed; the washing machine is still rumbling, but not as frantically as a few moments earlier.

So, with the resignation of someone who didn't really put up much of a fight, Emma bids back, "Good morning, Miss Mills." There's something so oddly _wrong_ in that title that Emma feels the need to check Regina's finger in search of a wedding ring, wondering if maybe her subconscious had registered one and is now telling her that it's _Mrs. Mills_ , instead.

The woman's fingers are bare, alas, but the answer to Emma's troubled thoughts arrives quickly. "It's actually Mayor Mills," Regina says, taking Emma aback.

"Thomas Menino is the mayor, not _you_."

There it is – the eye-roll that has been stuck in Emma's mind since her first conversation with Regina. "Not the mayor of _Boston_ , of course!" And Emma can feel very, very distinctly that the brunette's next words are going to change her life completely. "Storybrooke, Maine. That is where I come from."

So much so that she teleports away before Regina can add anything else, the clothes still spinning in the washing machine, the crossword puzzle right next to her cereal box completely forgotten.

Emma doesn't want her life to change. Which is why, she decides, she is going to avoid Regina Mills.

* * *

And she _really_ tries. It's not her fault the woman seems to know exactly where she is, all the time. Nor that she is no longer able to think about something that doesn't involve tan skin, dark eyes and plump lips.

So the woman is attractive. Big deal. That's not the reason why she can't get Regina Mills out of her mind.

This is the first time in her whole life that Emma is somewhat close to finding out who she is. She does realize that her powers aren't fortuitous, that they are linked to where she comes from. Maybe it's another planet, her own personal Krypton; maybe it's something else entirely. The fact that this woman is apparently ( _apparently_ ; Emma still doesn't trust her in the slightest) harmless and yet aware of her abilities might mean that she knows something about her that Emma herself doesn't. Regina might have powers too.

Regina might know her parents. And the very thought scares her shitless.

So, when Emma had decided to avoid the woman, she had anticipated that her mind would still regularly host the thought of the mysterious lady; what she hadn't foreseen was…

Well, her clothes neatly folded just outside her front door, for one. She almost tripped over them on her way out of her studio apartment, just a couple of hours after having fled the Laundromat. Three plastic bags neatly (and unnecessarily) labelled 'Pants', 'Shirts' and 'Underwear', _God_ – Regina had waited for the laundry machine to finish before putting everything in the dryer and even _folding_ it. Not even Emma does that, and they're _her_ clothes.

Then, Emma realizes that Regina is a _stranger_ , yet seems to know where she lives – and she only goes as far as moving the bags inside with her foot, before closing the door behind her, double-locking it and heading for a bar. She needs tequila.

The following handful of days goes by swiftly as ever. The routine of Emma's everyday life remains completely unaffected by unsolicited visits from the brunette, and Emma _doesn't stress out about it_. Yes, she's in a mood. It's probably only PMS, she tells herself, ignoring the voice at the back of her mind that reminds her it's only been a week since her last period.

When a whole week passes, Emma's way of handling the situation shifts from obsessing over Regina Mills (or, in Emma's words, 'Occasionally wondering about her whereabouts', which is as euphemistic as it can possibly be) to full-on denial. "It was only a figment of my imagination," she repeats like a mantra, sure that by the end of the day she will have convinced herself.

As she rolls out of bed on day eight, Emma is positive that she will never see the mysterious woman again.

Then she finds her snooping around her kitchen, the stove on for the first time since Emma has moved in, and what suspiciously looks like pancakes frizzling on a pan.

"Good morning, Miss Swan," Regina Mills bids nonchalantly (and somewhat sarcastically, as if she wouldn't waste time with pleasantries, in normal circumstances), for the second time since they've known each other, as she inspects a syrup bottle to check if it's expired.

Emma – barely-awake, caffeine-deprived Emma – seriously considers the possibility that the woman might be a robot, with a limited amount of pre-programmed sentences that she's able to enunciate, a lock-picking set hidden beneath her fingers and fake flawless skin. She also doesn't consciously register the subtle relief that floods her at the presence, what with her brain being kind of fuzzy from both exhaustion and confusion.

What she does register – and it hits her like a shockwave, blasting her brain into full awake-mode – is the bitter, heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and she lunges at it like an addict at his favorite drug.

As she pours out the contents of the coffee pot into two mugs, wordlessly offering one to Regina, she wonders what question she ought to ask first. _How did you get in?_ should be the obvious answer, but it's not exactly the most pressing one, at the moment.

 _What do you want from me?_ is also a very crucial topic to tackle, yet Emma isn't sure she really wants to know. She wasn't kidding when she said that she didn't want her life to change. Changes give her anxiety, so she tends to stay as far away from them as she can.

She settles for the next best thing. "Shouldn't you be back in Maine, you know… _mayoring_ and stuff? Isn't ruling a town more important than making breakfast for a complete stranger?"

"Not presently," is the only answer Regina is willing to give, and she lays the last pancake on a plate before joining Emma at the coffee table – the only available surface for a meal, considering the lack of a dining table.

As soon as Emma takes the first bite, she regrets it. With her mouth still full, she mumbles, "These aren't poisoned, right?" which is probably the most useless question in the world. It's just that nothing can possibly be _this_ good without backfiring… And Emma's life had been full of things that had eventually ended up being too good to be true. Her skepticism is justified.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Regina chastises, exasperation and disgust distorting her features. "It would be quite counterproductive for me to poison these pancakes, considering I've only made you breakfast to make sure you wouldn't run away this time."

Emma instantly chokes on the food she's chewing, entirely taken aback. "How could you possibly know that I like food _that_ much?"

To Emma's surprise, a faraway look dominates Regina's otherwise fiery eyes. With a wistful smile, "Lucky guess," she says.

The answer is so cryptic that Emma's first instinct is not to believe it; that there has to be some CIA-level stalking involved. But Regina's entire demeanor has shifted, the confident, imperative woman has recoiled, leaving a broken heart in her place.

It doesn't last for longer than a second; but it's enough for Emma to see it and realize that this woman isn't here to hurt her.

"Why are you here, Regina Mills?" she asks at last, resigned yet slightly accusing, dreading the answer but fully aware that she can't go on avoiding it.

"I'm here because I need to travel back in time, and you're the only person who can help me."

 _Well_. This is unexpected. "O-kay," Emma says, her confusion now slowly turning into a headache. "Uh, why would I help you? You show up out of nowhere, stalk me, break into my house and- how do you even _know_ about me?"

"You're not the only person with extraordinary abilities, Miss Swan. There are thousands of us – all residents of the town I rule, Storybrooke. You are… an exception."

"Wait, _us_? Do _you_ have powers, too?"

Okay, so this eye-roll thing is getting old pretty quickly. "Indeed," says Regina, and right on cue she produces Emma's phone from the bedroom, an incoming message flashing on the screen and a cloud of purple smoke slowly dissipating. "Here you go."

Emma is a bit too dumbfounded to do anything but take the phone she's offered. At least that explains how Regina got into her apartment. The only person who would text her is her boss, anyway, and if he has a new bail jumper for her – well, it'll have to wait. She pockets the phone without even opening the message.

"Well, if you have magic, why would you need me?"

"I need you because you are the only person I know who can travel through time. These type of abilities are… different, according to the person who has them. Teleportation and telekinesis are quite common – nearly everyone can master them; but each one of us also has a more specific skill, much more powerful than the others. Foresight, telepathy, shape-shifting…"

Emma takes a moment to let all that sink in. "And I don't suppose you'll tell me _why_ you need to travel back in time, will you?"

The sly smile she receives in response answers the question. "You still haven't told me how you found out about me," Emma points out a moment after – to no avail, because the brunette only arches a brow. "Listen, lady – you gotta give me more than that, if you want my help. You clearly don't like me, you look like you'd rather eat _my_ pancakes than ask someone for their help, and you've been all cranky every time I've seen you. I still don't trust you, and as long as you avoid answering my questions, I'm not going to."

"You're right," says Regina, taking Emma aback. "This was an absolute waste of time." She raises from her spot on the couch and, without sparing a second look at Emma, she strides out of the apartment, the front door slamming shut behind her and Emma swimming deep in open-mouthed astonishment.

* * *

 **A/N:** You guyyys it's been a while but I'm back! This story was originally written as part of this year's Swan Queen Supernova on AO3, but I figured I'd share it with you here on Fanfic, too. One chapter a day for a total of six, 31k words of gayness. I really hope you'll like it. X


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

August fifteenth is a gloomy Monday, survivor of a stormy night but still not quite over it. A bit like Emma herself, only the storms that had haunted her the night before had been all in her mind.

Most thoughts of Regina Mills had faded over the past week, the guilt and self-doubt ( _Should I have listened to her? Was I too harsh? I was the only person who could help her…_ ) were progressively overcome as this particular date approached.

She has spent the entire morning in bed. She can barely bear the thought of going out and _pretending_ – pretending that she is okay, that she hasn't spent every single night during the past ten years wallowing in guilt, playing in her mind impossible scenarios of what could have been, of how unimaginably different her life would have been, if she had made a different choice.

She can't go outside today without staring at children for way too long, searching every toothy grin and curious gaze for a trace of herself or of Neal.

She can't allow herself to live her life, today; not when she doesn't even know for sure if _he_ is happy, if _he_ is healthy, if _he_ is _alive at all_.

She can't do anything, today, but _wonder_ , _wonder_ , _wonder_ about the baby that had been her only reason to live for nine months, a reason that went away with him as soon as she gave him up.

She had never given him a name. She had never had anyone, in her life, important enough to be honored and remembered in such way; besides, giving him a name would have made the whole process much more _real_ , just like looking at him right after he was born. She had tried so desperately to remain as detached as she could have possibly been, if only to be able to send him away, to possibly doom him to the same childhood she had had because keeping him wouldn't have been possible for an eighteen-year-old with no degree, no money, no parents and a criminal record.

'Duckling' had been the only nickname she had allowed herself to give him; a cheesy joke one of her doctors had made during her first echography, seen the peculiarity of her surname. It had stuck, for some reason; maybe because, despite the total, numbing alienation that she had been in, the pains, the sicknesses, the kicks had still been the most wonderful thing that had happened to her, and she needed something more concrete than a fleeting memory to commemorate it.

She has always imagined him as a little angel with blonde locks, chubby cheeks and green eyes. Partly because she had been so heartbroken, at the time, that she used to avoid any thought of Neal almost obsessively; but mainly because she couldn't imagine that something that had grown inside of her could look any different from herself. He was _hers_ even if he wasn't going to be.

And, today, it's been ten years since she refused to look at her child. She revels in the painful jolt that hits her straight in the heart, as she thinks that she could have seen him grow up but hasn't.

As these self-harming thoughts keep her pinned to the bed, unable and unwilling to get up, Emma hopes against hope, wishes with every fiber of her being, that her little Duckling grew up with someone who loved him.

It's with a heavy heart and a weary mind that she slips in and out of a tormented sleep for the following couple of hours, her heavy eyes darting to the clock on her bedside table each time she wakes up. Lunchtime rolls by and Emma still doesn't make a move, the sole thought of eating making her nauseous.

It's nearing four o'clock when she wakes yet again, this time disturbed by an impatient knocking at the door, followed by the doorknob loudly rattling. She tiredly ponders on the identity of whoever is trying to get inside of her apartment, and since a burglar is the only plausible solution that comes to mind, she merely pulls the thin bed sheet over her head, entirely willing to let them break in and steal whatever they want.

She hears a muffled female voice and then a click, followed by the light squeaking of the door sliding open and a chipper, "Thank you ever so much," that has Emma peak through the bundle of covers only to see if the burglar was more than one person.

It isn't; a rosy-cheeked, pixy-haired woman, probably around Emma's age, is standing in the middle of the studio apartment, looking at the blonde with a polite smile.

"Hi! You're Emma, right?" the stranger asks.

 _Okay_ , so she's probably not a burglar. The flower pattern of the dress she's wearing and… well, the fact that she just talked to Emma suggest as much. Seeing as she's the second person who knows Emma's name and has broken into her apartment, the blonde has a feeling she might be connected to Regina Mills, somehow.

She sits up in bed, aware of the halo of a bird's nest sitting on top of her head and the puffiness of her heavy-lidded eyes, and croaks out, "I am. Do you all just blatantly ignore the purpose of door-locks, up in Storyland, or do you actually not know it?"

A sincerely amused chuckle – which puzzles Emma, because _how_ can anyone _ever_ not pick up on the sarcasm? – accompanies the woman's next words. "In _Storybrooke_ ," she corrects, "everyone is perfectly aware of a door-lock's function, and I'm sorry for showing up uninvited and breaking in. I mean, of course I would never have been 'invited', since you don't know who I am and- oh, God, I haven't even introduced myself-"

"Okay!" Emma interrupts her. "Too many words, too little coffee."

She is about to get up and head for the coffee pot, careless of the fact that it's filled with two-days-old liquid, but the brunette suddenly holds up a steaming Starbucks cup. "I took the liberty to get you some. Yes," she adds, after Emma has taken the offered drink and read the name scribbled on top, "that's me. I'm Mary Margaret Blanchard, nice to meet you."

"Were you talking to someone?" Emma inquires after her first sip. At the brunette's furrowed brow, she précises, "Right before coming inside? And I thought I heard you say 'Thank you', but-"

"I did. Yeah, I'm not sure I should tell you who I was talking to…"

"Why? Ugh, is Regina here?" The annoyance in Emma's voice isn't quite as sincere as she would have liked – stained by a light guilt for having pried, during her last conversation with the Mayor, and by the same odd eagerness the other woman constantly seems to arouse in her.

Mary Margaret's face scrunches up in an apologetic look. "She couldn't make it. It's her son's birthday. He turns ten; it's quite a big deal."

Emma is sure her heart stops for a few moments, right there. Then it starts pounding at a worrying speed, and the hands of the clock on her wall start moving backwards, and though Mary Margaret seems unaffected and unaware of the time-turn, she most certainly notices Emma's distress.

"Did I say something…?" she inquires, concern coloring her features. "Listen, I get it that you might not like Regina – in fact, very few people do – but she really does need you. I don't know why, she hasn't exactly told me; we're not on good terms. Actually, she doesn't even know I'm here and will very likely kill me, but-"

"Fine."

"Pardon?"

"I said _fine_ ," Emma repeats patiently, and the clock resumes its usual ticking. "I'll go with you. Take me to Disney World."

An ear-splitting shriek erupts from Mary Margaret, who does a little jump and claps her hands, smiling from ear to ear. She's so excited that she doesn't even correct Emma. "Really? Yay! If we leave now- huh," she lets out, her eyes glued to her wristwatch, "I thought it was four PM, when I arrived." She casts a glance around the room and it stills when she sees the clock on Emma's wall. "Well, I must have been wrong."

Because Emma's little breakdown has turned back time, and it's now two. "I need to take a shower," she says, if only to distract Mary Margaret. "Is it a problem if I keep you waiting for a couple minutes?"

At Mary Margaret's negative response, Emma grabs clean underwear and clothes (from the bags Regina left in front of her doorstep, since she hasn't bothered doing much to them, other than moving them by her bed) and locks herself up in the bathroom.

Once she's underneath the soothing jet of water, she closes her eyes and tries to make sense of what is happening.

Regina had told her that everyone with special powers lives in Storybrooke (yes, she does remember the name. It's just so ridiculous that it _sounds_ made up), which would make Emma assume that Mary Margaret does too. She isn't willing to take that risk, however, and decides to keep away from the topic unless the brunette herself is the one to bring it up first. Mary Margaret knows Regina, knows that she is likely busy spending the day with her son or throwing him a birthday party, but until she has proof that this quirky woman is, in fact, aware of the existence of magic, she won't mention it. Better safe than sorry.

Emma doesn't exactly know what has spurred her to finally cave in and decide to help Regina Mills. She just knows that today _her own_ kid is turning ten, too, and if she wasn't able to do something right in 2001, maybe she can do it now, by helping another mother and, consequently, her kid.

Maybe there's a good reason why Regina needs to go back in time. And because she's currently so utterly numb at everything, Emma decides to give her the benefit of the doubt, at last. She only hopes she's not going to regret it.

It's with half-hearted effort that she packs up a bag with a change of clothing and some essentials, and not ten minutes later she's sitting in Mary Margaret's pick-up – she had expected something more like a Mini Cooper, something that suited the brunette's chirpy character, but she's somewhat glad to have been proven otherwise.

The car drive to Maine isn't a long one, but regardless, Mary Margaret somehow manages to fill any potentially-awkward silence. As Emma had suspected when she'd first seen her, the woman talks _a lot_. She is nothing short of the exact opposite of Regina Mills: exuberant, friendly, open. Never once does she let the conversation die down, finding topic after topic to discuss with Emma; and the blonde is admittedly glad, because Mary Margaret is easy to chat with, and it keeps her distracted from much heavier thoughts. There is a tinge of guilt pulling and twisting her guts, but it's easy to tune it out when there's such a positive, happy person asking her about her favorite food.

"My fiancé's in a coma," Mary Margaret ventures at some point, about an hour into the road trip, and it's probably the first time since she and Emma have met that she isn't smiling. "He has been for a long time."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." Emma really is. She's also very curious, eager to know what happened to him – but she isn't that careless, and settles for, "Do you miss him?"

If Mary Margaret finds the question silly, she doesn't show it. "Every single day," she replies mournfully. "You'd think that, as the years go by, I'd move on, or that the pain would dwindle. It doesn't. I can't even bear the thought of being with someone who isn't David."

"Was it an accident?"

At that question, the veil of sadness that was glazing Mary Margaret's eyes just moments before drops and the woman seems to snap out of the melancholic spiraling that she was falling into.

"Yeah, something like that," is her cryptic response, and – well, maybe she does have something in common with Regina, after all. "How about you? Anyone special in your life?"

Though Mary Margaret's question is an attempt at diverting the conversation onto a lighter matter, the atmosphere remains dense with gloom. "Nobody," Emma responds, and Mary Margaret must see how strained her smile is, because she doesn't pry.

They continue talking about nothing, after that. When they touch the 'favorite movie' subject, they lose themselves in an amicable debate about rom-coms that accompanies them all the way to Storybrooke.

It's when they cross the town line, that Emma feels _it_. As soon as they pass the 'Welcome to Storybrooke' sign, Emma can perceive the change in the town's timeline.

She _knows_ that Storybrooke had been stuck in time for exactly twenty-seven years, nine months and twenty-four days; she also _knows_ that, as soon as she entered the town, time resumed its natural course.

But there is no time to dwell on this newfound information, because Mary Margaret is pulling over in front of an eighties-style diner ( _Granny's_ , reads the neon sign at the front) and urging Emma to get out of the truck.

"Since you were sleeping when I got to your place, I figured you hadn't had lunch," Mary Margaret explains as they hurry to the other side of the street and enter the air-conditioned diner. "This is the best place in town."

"Always nice to hear," says a lively voice, and as she turns, Emma sees a tall brunette, all legs and eyeliner, grin at Mary Margaret. Her red lipstick matches sporadic strands of her hair, as well as the waitress apron she's wearing. "Especially if you're telling… someone… new?" The girl's smile falters as she sends a confused stare to Mary Margaret, but it's back in full force as soon as she turns to Emma. "Hi, I'm Ruby. Welcome to Storybrooke!"

Emma politely shakes her hand. "Emma. Nice to meet-"

"Just what exactly are you doing here?"

Everybody in the room seems to freeze at the thundering voice. Well, except for Emma, who tries very hard to repress the relief that washes over her and predictably fails.

"Ow, you could have told me she was the Mayor's," she hears Ruby whisper at Mary Margaret, as the three of them turn toward the counter. A white-haired woman ('Granny', Emma presumes) is pouring coffee in a travel cup, right in front of Regina. "Maybe next time."

Emma, under everyone's astonished scrutiny, walks over and leans against the bar, right next to the other woman. "Giving you the benefit of the doubt," she allows. "You should thank Mary Margaret, actually-"

Regina turns her head around so quickly that Emma gets whiplash just by watching her. She fixates Mary Margaret with the most murderous glare that Emma's ever seen; it makes the blonde imagine that the two brunettes have history.

"Miss Blanchard? Care to elaborate?"

They move out of the diner, an attempt at keeping the conversation more private. Mary Margaret holds up her hands, a useless attempt at placating the other woman. "Regina, calm down. I just- I know that you and Henry are having problems, and I thought _she_ might help."

"It wasn't your _place_ to do so!" As Emma keeps on watching the exchange, she notices two things: that the occupants of the diner, including Ruby and Granny, have come out and started to gather around the three of them, albeit keeping their distance; and that Regina is _exuding_ purple smoke, which probably means she is _very_ angry. "Need I remind you what happened the last time you tried to help me?"

Ruby jogs over, standing right between Regina and Mary Margaret, her back at her friend in a defensive position. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing that concerns you, Miss Lucas-"

 _Clang_.

Everyone stills. Approximately twenty people, in unison, look somewhere above Emma's head. As she follows their line of sight, she sees that they are watching the clock tower, which is now striking five o'clock, its bells tolling in the distance. When Emma looks back at Regina, she sees that everyone is now staring at her.

"David," she hears Mary Margaret say, and not a second later, her figure is replaced by a cloud of white smoke, just like Emma's.

"What is happening?" she inquires, her voice low.

"Not here," is the only response Regina is willing to give and, a second later, they're disappearing.

The street right in front of the diner is replaced by luxurious home décor, and after politely clearing her voice, Regina – back to her normal, cranky-but-not-murderous self – straightens her spine and explains, "Storybrooke has been stuck in time for almost twenty-eight years, Miss Swan." She's walking, purposefully striding along the hallway.

As Emma hastily follows her through the kitchen and to what she assumes is Regina's study, she lets out, "I know. I felt it the moment I crossed the town line. I think it's my presence here that has triggered time back into motion." She has also deduced, from what she's seen so far, that time manipulation does not affect people with powers , only the world around them – though she doesn't know why that is.

"I agree." Regina extracts a decanter from a shelf and pours amber liquid into two tumblers, handing one to Emma. They sip in silence for a couple of seconds, during which Emma totally reconsiders apple cider, because _man_ , this is the best one she has ever tasted. Then, "I can't believe that insipid brat managed to convince you to come."

Taken aback by the remark, Emma précised, "She didn't. She told me it was your son's birthday." But Regina doesn't respond to that, her gaze lost in the glass she's holding, so Emma prompts, "How did he grow up, if the town was stuck in time?"

"I have no idea." Her voice is lost, and Emma voices a question that might be too invasive.

"Where is your son, Regina?" because he wasn't at the diner and the house seems empty.

Emma doesn't really expect an answer, not after the results – or, rather, lack thereof – she obtained last time. But the olive branch Emma extended by coming to Storybrooke isn't rejected; and Regina musters up enough courage to confess, "In Storybrooke." She takes a deep breath and, finally raising her gaze to meet Emma's, she says, "I just don't know _when_."

* * *

The rest of the day goes by in a flash.

Regina tells Emma _everything_ , from the problems she's been having with her son – who is adopted, apparently, and Emma can't help but respect the other woman just that little bit more – to the fact that he, as well as Mary Margaret's fiancé, can also warp time. Henry's been gone for three weeks exactly, according to Regina, and it doesn't take much math knowledge to date the day of his disappearance to the brunette's first visit in Boston.

"He's only a child, and his powers are mainly driven by emotions," Regina tells her shakily, unrestrained guilt and fear tainting her voice. "When we fought, he was so upset- He'd just found out he was adopted, and he was crying and he was so angry at me. There was a flash of light around him and a second later he was gone."

Regina also tells her about the invisible bubble that envelops Storybrooke. When, twenty-eight years earlier, a certain Zelena had wreaked all kinds of havoc, and then some, in their little town by throwing a tornado at it ("It's called _atmokinesis_ ," Regina had said, "the ability to control the weather"), Regina had managed to send her away and shield the town from her and other intruders, whilst David had rewound time to a couple minutes before the attack, when the tornado hadn't yet caused any damage. He'd been keeping it stuck in that particular moment for almost three decades, and it required so much of his vital energy that he'd fallen into a coma immediately, continuing his enchantment unconsciously.

"Your presence seems to not only have undone his deed," Regina reasons at some point, "but it's as if you had erased its future destruction by creating a parallel timeline."

"How do you mean?"

Regina was focused; the crease right between her eyebrows proved so. "If you had only nullified David's manipulation, the town would have technically resumed its existence from where it had stopped last – allegedly, in October 1983 – and, therefore, it would have experienced the tornado once again. Essentially, it would have been 2011 everywhere else, whilst it would have been 1983 here; and 1984 next year, and so on.

"However, there is clearly no tornado, here. It's as if you had, albeit unintentionally, burst the metaphorical bubble that kept Storybrooke stuck in time and snapped the town directly into 2011."

Well, so now Emma was developing quite the headache. "Wait, let me get this straight – I _accidentally_ made a whole town skip almost three decades?"

"Precisely," Regina retorts, "which is why Miss Blanchard left so quickly."

At that, Emma voices a question that has been swirling through her mind for a while, now. "So Mary Margaret also has powers, right? You told me everyone has a different ability?"

"Well, not everyone, per se, but yes, most people do. For instance, Miss Lucas – the waitress," she clarifies, at Emma's confusion, "as well as her grandmother Eugenia, the owner of the diner, is a shape-shifter. She can turn into a wolf at will, and then back to her human form. Our librarian, Miss French, can read minds; Mr. Gold, the pawnbroker, can see the future. Some powers lean toward the more disturbing side, like Doctor Whale's gift of bringing corpses back to life or Miss Blanchard's ability to…" A shiver visibly runs down Regina's spine. Then, with a grimace, she finishes, "… _talk to animals_."

Emma chokes on her drink, inevitably falling in a coughing fit that has her eyes watering and her throat hurting. "She can talk to animals? That is… unconceivably lame!"

The low chuckle that Regina lets out hits Emma, twisting something right at the pit of her stomach. "How about you?" she asks then, because maybe Regina's power makes people feel all funny inside.

The hilarity disappears from Regina's face as quickly as it had come. "My powers aren't all that interesting," she says curtly and, in a flash, she's back to the withdrawn, closed-up person she was when Emma had first met her.

"I thought you were going to give me some answers," Emma can't help but say, and she flinches at the accusation in her tone almost as much as Regina.

"I am. But believe me when I tell you that some questions are better left unanswered."

And so Emma doesn't push, though she might resent Regina a bit. Her stomach growls right then, so Regina walks her back to the kitchen and fixes up some dinner for them both, surrounded by a heavy silence that borders oppressiveness. They eat at the island instead of the dining room table and, afterwards, Emma dries the dishes Regina washes.

"Where are you staying?" the latter asks, and it's the first time either of them has broken the silence.

Emma's response begins with a shrug. "I'll figure something out. Mary Margaret mentioned a B&B."

"You could stay here." It's rushed and imbued in vulnerability, and Regina seems just as surprised by the offer as Emma is.

"I wouldn't want to impose…" Emma begins, but a humorless chuckle from the other woman interrupts her.

"You're helping me to find my son. If anything, I'm the one who's imposing."

"You're not," Emma is quick to point out. "I- today was a hard day for me. I really needed this."

They're upstairs now, and Emma is following Regina as she gives her a tour of the floor. "This is the master bathroom – there are clean towels in the cupboard, in case you want to take a shower, and a spare toothbrush under the sink." She moves on to the next room, swings the door open and reveals a large bedroom, elegantly decorated like the rest of the house but still too modest to be Regina's. "This is the guest bedroom. I'd be glad if you didn't break anything. I sleep here," she adds, walking to the door opposite Emma's temporary accommodation. "Do not disturb me while I'm here or there will be consequences."

Emma solemnly nods, determined to be on her best behavior… though she doesn't exactly know why. She doesn't owe Regina anything, and yet- "Yes ma'am." With a small wave of her hand, the bag she'd left inside of Mary Margaret's pick-up and completely forgotten about materializes from thin air, and with an awkward, tight-lipped smile, she parts from Regina altogether and closes the guest bedroom door behind her.

It's only eight o'clock, but Emma is looking forward to trying out the queen-sized bed. After a quick stop to the bathroom – which is, probably, the single most uselessly opulent place she's ever been in – she takes off her jeans, switches her tank top over to a clean one and gratefully slides into the thin linen sheets, ready to resume the cycle of nightmares and self-loathing that Mary Margaret had interrupted earlier. It goes without saying that she doesn't get much sleep; her mind and her body wan, but unable to stop the anxiety in her stomach, and it's anything but unexpected.

She gives up at around five in the morning. Managing to find her bearings in the unfamiliar mansion, Emma steps into the kitchen and starts up the coffee maker, before filling up a mug – bright green and with a cow on it, which might be the last thing she'd ever imagined being in Regina Mills' house – and settling down on the back porch.

She watches the sun as it rises from behind the limitless expanse of trees that surround Storybrooke. It's a cathartic view, one she much prefers to the oppressive dimensions of buildings and skyscrapers that constantly loom over Boston. As the clear summer sky lights up with the promise of a new day, Emma hopes that she'll manage to reunite at least one kid and his mother.

* * *

She doesn't know how long she sits in the porch swing, lost in thought; but the sun is already up and her coffee mug empty, when the sliding doors open and Regina joins her.

"Have you ever traveled back in time?" she asks Emma once she's sat beside her, her legs curled up underneath her.

Emma shakes her head, her eyes never leaving the landscape. "Time-travel requires much more thought than time-manipulation. There are infinite factors that need to be considered, from the amount of vital energy required to the potential creation of paradoxes. Not to mention that, if you travel to a time where you're already alive, you must be careful not to be seen in the presence of your past self. Fast-forwarding, rewinding and stopping time is easier, because you remain in the same body, which ages or gets younger according to your manipulation; whereas, in time travels, you disappear from the present and physically move into another temporal dimension, maintaining the same form as the present."

"We will need to lay out a plan that includes all of that," Regina points out, rubbing her temples to soothe her headache, "though it might take a while. This needs to be thought through. I don't know if we can take the chance of failing."

"Probably not. Come on." Emma gets up and lays out a hand for Regina to take, though the brunette seems a bit distracted from the particular state of undress Emma is in. "Let's get ready and talk this over a couple of those bear claws I saw yesterday at _Granny's_."

* * *

"Just _try it_." Emma's arm is stretched out across the table, and she's waving a torn-off piece of pastry right in Regina's face.

"Over your dead body," she retorts, and punctuates her statement by sticking a spoonful of oatmeal in her mouth.

"Keep that up and she might just tear your heart out." Ruby, who was passing by to serve a client at a nearby table, then turns to Regina. "Though, Madam Mayor, Granny really does make a mean bear claw."

"I don't doubt that, Miss Lucas, but I would rather eat something healthier for breakfast. Thank you for your consideration."

Emma sits back and huffs, but at least she gets to eat that last piece of bear claw. "It's your loss," she sing-songs, and Regina can't help but scoff out a laugh as she shakes her head in exasperation.

A sudden burst of cheers and applause has the two women look up to see the cause of the commotion. By the entrance, Mary Margaret is pushing a man in a wheelchair, his skin of an unhealthy shade of pale and his smile tired, but clearly happy nonetheless. Everyone in the diner is either clapping or heading over to him, including Ruby, who all but lunges at him, enveloping him in a hug.

When even Regina heads over to join the small crowd gathering around them, Emma figures it's best if she does, too, though she stands aside, not really part of the celebration.

As the man's eyes settle on Regina, his smile falters a little and he struggles to stand up, Mary Margaret's hand shooting out to support him.

"You look good, Madam Mayor," he says, though there's a heaviness to his voice that has most of the customers retreat to their breakfasts to give them some privacy.

"Thank you, Mr. Nolan. Wish I could say the same for you…" It's a jab, but it's meant to lighten the tension; and the man laughs and swings his free arm around Regina, patting her back as she reciprocates the hug. "I'm glad you're okay, David."

 _David_ , Emma thinks. Mary Margaret's fiancé.

"So… Is she…"

"Here? Yes. Emma?" Regina calls her from over her shoulder, prompting Emma to step forward. "David, this is Emma Swan. She involuntarily broke the time warp when she came to Storybrooke."

The awkward wave Emma manages does nothing to erase the intense look on his – and Mary Margaret's, she notices – face. "Emma…" he lets out almost in wonder, though he snaps out of it quickly, offering her a warm smile. "Thank you, I guess, for waking me up."

"Yeah, uh… my pleasure?" She lets out an awkward laugh. "I've heard a lot about you. What you did to save the town was really brave."

David shrugs off the compliment. "Couldn't have done it without Regina. By the way- your sister isn't coming back anytime soon, is she?"

"The barrier I put around the city is still standing strong. Even if she comes back, she can't get to town," Regina informs him.

Ruby chimes in right then, telling David that his hot chocolate is ready, and he slumps back into his wheelchair so that Mary Margaret can push him to a table.

"So, you've been staying with Regina, huh?" Mary Margaret asks her. She's smiling, but it looks somewhat strained, as if she were holding back a thought. "Did you meet Henry? He's in my English class, he's such a nice boy."

Emma flashes a glance at Regina, looking for backup; but the woman is still deep in conversation with David, so Emma will have to improvise, because apparently Mary Margaret doesn't know that Henry has gone missing. "Yeah, we hung out last night. He's very sweet. Actually- since it was his birthday, Regina let him stay up until late to watch a movie, so he's still asleep now."

"About that," Regina intervenes then, "maybe we should head back home, Emma. He's bound to wake up any minute now." She turns back to David and lightly squeezes his arm. "It's nice to have you back." Then, barely sparing a glance at Mary Margaret, she heads for the exit, and Emma only manages to rush a goodbye before she has to hurry after her.

They had walked to the diner, the nice summer day luring them away from the shade of Regina's car. Emma had enjoyed the companionable silence that had accompanied them, though now she feels the need to voice one specific question.

"So, what's the story?"

Regina arches a brow. "Care to elaborate?"

"You know, between you and David and Mary Margaret. My theory is that you were in love with him, but he chose her, which is why you hate her so much. Or maybe you were together for a while, because he seemed pretty into you, too."

Emma's words have Regina stop dead in her tracks, just so she can gape at Emma a bit more dramatically. They seem to have caused a wide range of emotions in the brunette, because her features express confusion, then hilarity, then a flash of anger, only to finally settle on faint surprise.

"I'm sorry, Miss Swan, I'm afraid you have misinterpreted… well, everything."

"Oh, no, we're back to _Miss Swan_ now? I thought you'd finally started calling me Emma. Which, you know, is my name, and you're not a Hogwarts professor, _so_."

Regina rolls her eyes and resumes walking. "I called you Emma because I needed to keep up appearances," she explains. "God knows who they think you are; probably my long-distance girlfriend or something. Surely enough, I couldn't let them know you're barely a stranger."

"I mean, you've known Ruby for, like, thirty years, you'd think you'd call her by her first name by now, too, but you don't." Emma lifts up a shoulder. "I'm just saying, I don't think anyone would be surprised if you called your girlfriend _Miss_."

Regina pointedly ignores her. "David is a good man. Well- to an extent. He did cheat on his wife with Miss Blanchard, after all. But he was the only person brave enough to help me to send Zelena away, and he gave up thirty years of his life to protect this town. I respect him. Fighting together helped us bond, I suppose."

"Zelena," Emma then says. "The woman with the tornado. You didn't tell me she was your sister."

Regina curls up a lip in mild disgust. "Half-sister. I like to make that very clear. She's white, ginger and _British_."

" _She must be a Weasley_ ," Emma mutters under her breath, but Regina hears her anyway and sighs. "I was serious, though. Call me Emma."


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

AUTUMN 2011

It takes Emma and Regina a total of one month to get everything ready for their trip back in time, and they haven't even figured out what date they should get back _to_ , yet.

Regina grows more and more restless as the weeks go by. Emma understands – really, she does – but the other woman's way of coping with stress and fear is through fits of anger, and she'd rather push people away than show vulnerability, so, every other night they fight, yelling at each other until Emma storms out of the room and goes to sleep with guilt weighing on her chest, because she has a bit of a temper and she really should know better than to _run_.

They need to learn how to deal with each other, but at least, every time they call each other out for something, they make sure not to repeat the same mistake twice. And every morning after they've fought, Regina makes waffles for breakfast because Emma once mentioned she loved them, and the blonde washes the dishes to give Regina time to get ready. It's a routine that keeps them both on edge, but somehow, pushing and running seems to fuel their will to stick together, which brings result after result.

By the time September rolls around, they have managed to calculate exactly how much energy it would take Emma to travel back in time with another person, based on the subjects' heights and weights, and since even teleportation was difficult for her, they have spent a good percentage of those weeks exercising Emma's stamina.

The following weeks witness Emma's attempts at actually going back in time and then returning to the present. It's complicated, mainly because the creation of time paradoxes isn't entirely predictable; but they don't have other options, and Emma is willing to take that chance.

Another factor they'd had to take into consideration is that, when Emma travels back in time, she can't travel through space, too: she will show up in the exact same spot she was in the present, only during a different time. That would have been fine, as long as they didn't travel back further than twenty-seven years ago, because that's when Storybrooke had fallen under David's time-bubble, hence it had been the same as it is now – buildings and all. They couldn't risk materializing in a wall three decades prior.

Once Emma manages to travel back a few hours with Regina and then return to the present without even noticing her energy decrease, they start discussing the date they need to go back to. Emma's endurance has improved significantly and, according to Regina's calculations, it should now be enough to ' _Send an adult horse to fight in the Crusades_ '; but if Henry had gone even further back than a thousand years, they might have a problem.

Still, it's very unlikely. They have come to the conclusion that there are three main dates Henry might have traveled to: the day he was born; the day Regina adopted him; and the day when this all began and Zelena attacked Storybrooke. However, the odds of choosing the correct one are very low, and after several fights and cold-shoulder treatments, Emma has caved in and agreed with Regina's idea to go to the place where Henry performed his spell and attempt to locate the exact amount of energy that he'd employed. Through that, they should be able to calculate exactly what moment in history he's ended up in. Regina says it's doable, and though Emma believes her, she isn't entirely convinced that it's going to be _safe_. There's an odd kink to her voice whenever she suggests it, though she never mentions any sort of preoccupation out loud.

As if they weren't busy enough as it is, Regina hasn't had the chance to skip work – and, well, being Mayor requires a lot of it. Emma has used the time Regina spends at Town Hall to master her traveling abilities, stopping only to grab some lunch at _Granny's_ and then materialize in Regina's office so that they can eat together and Emma can update her on her progress.

That's where they are right now: Emma sprawled on the sofa and finishing her burger, whilst Regina is sitting at her desk, all poised, eating her chicken salad in small, graceful bites and going on and on about Emma's manners.

"You're cute when you get riled up," the blonde comments, interrupting the rant.

Regina's cheeks take on a rosy hue, as she arches a brow and lets out, almost indignant, "I am _no such thing_."

"Right," Emma sarcastically concedes, "and you also haven't eaten some of my fries." She knows Regina has. She always does; which is why Emma leaves the brown bag on the desk – to give the two of them some more privacy.

"Take it back!" Regina orders in outrage.

"What? The fry you stole from me or…?"

" _Miss Mills? Your one o'clock is here_ ," says a male voice from the interphone.

Emma rises from the couch. "Already? But it's barely half-past twelve!" she complains, but gathers the remains of her lunch anyway.

Regina presses a button on the phone. "Let him in." Then, turning back to Emma, she dares, "You could stay – it's just the sheriff."

It sounds uncertain, more like a question than an offer, and Emma is tempted to accept. The double doors to the office, however, are thrown open before she can say anything, revealing a man in a sheriff uniform that Emma has only seen sporadically around town.

"Madame Mayor," he bids in an… is it Irish?... accent. He then spots Emma and, offering his hand for her to shake, says, "Hi, I'm Sheriff Graham Humbert. You must be Emma. I've heard a lot about you."

"Have you?" she questions.

He nods. "David's one of my deputies. He says he's awake thanks to you."

Emma rubs the back of her neck in discomfort, not at all used to the attention and the amount of compliments people keep sending her way. "It wasn't exactly intentional, so I really shouldn't get as much credit as I do."

Regina cuts him off before he can reply. "Sheriff Humbert, have you interrupted our lunch to make small talk or is there a genuine reason why you're here?"

He gives Regina an apologetic look and hands her a yellow folder. "Those are the station's weekly reports, along with a request to hire a new deputy – Schmidt and Franklin have decided to retire, and we're legally compelled to let them, because as young as they may look, they are in their seventies."

"Yes, I've received similar requests from Moe French and Michael Tillman. I think it's more out of laziness than anything – look at Marco and Granny: they've been in their late sixties for over twenty years and haven't complained once." She pauses a second to look at Emma, head tilted sideways and contemplative look. "You are a bail bondsperson, are you not?"

"Yes…" Emma replies hesitantly, unsure where this is going.

Regina hums her understanding, but lets the matter hang, never really letting Emma in on her thoughts. "Keep me updated, Sheriff Humbert. How do you and Deputy Nolan like the new setup?"

During the weeks after Emma's arrival, the town had started to evolve slowly, approaching more and more the twenty-first century and leaving the eighties behind. The internet, smartphones, laptops – Emma isn't sure how or when they had started arriving into town, but suddenly Ruby had an iPhone 4 and Emma could watch Game of Thrones on Regina's new flat-screen TV. It's a welcome change, for Emma, though it has taken the town a bit of getting used to. She's seen the 'Store Closing' sign on the Blockbuster down the street, though she isn't sure whether it's due to the arrival of Netflix or the fact that it hasn't updated its merchandise for nearly thirty years.

"We're getting there," the sheriff informs her. "We could use Miss Swan's help, though. If she doesn't mind."

Emma shoots Regina a helpless look, incapable of fulfilling the man's request but also unable to tell him, ' _No can do, we need to go back in time to find Regina's missing kid._ ' She settles for a noncommittal, "I'll see what I can do," before turning to Regina. "I'd better go now. I'll see you at home?"

She can't quite pinpoint the cause of Regina's vague surprise, but the smile she offers Emma is warm enough to distract her.

* * *

One thing Emma hadn't expected to ever witness is Regina _fidgeting_. The usually composed, confident woman is now running her hands through her hair in stress, pacing through the living room as she waits for her guest to arrive.

"You don't understand," she tells Emma, "Gold isn't as much a human as he is a _beast_. Heartless but for Miss French, he plays with you, loves making deals; he twists your words until they stop making sense and finds loophole after loophole to obtain whatever he is after. He is always, inevitably one step ahead – he's a Seer; he always knows what will happen and how." She pauses her restless movement when the doorbell rings, and Emma figures it's best if she accompanies her to the foyer, a supporting hand resting on Regina's lower back.

When they open the door to let the guest in, they don't expect to find the front porch completely deserted – nor to hear a high-pitched, eerie giggle come from behind them.

Sitting on the banister of the staircase is a… man? Emma isn't sure that that is the best way to describe him. His skin is golden, leaning towards an almost greenish hue, and the grin he is sporting reveals a set of yellow teeth that tie in with the color of his crazed eyes.

Regina, apparently unfazed by the intruder, quips, "Why even bother ringing the doorbell, if you're just going to let yourself in?"

"Now, now, Madame Mayor, and here I thought your mother had taught you how to properly treat your guests." Regina flinches at that, and the snicker he lets out sends a shiver down Emma's spine. "Wasn't it for your poor manners that she gave you that scar?"

Emma's eyes dart to the nick on Regina's upper lip, a mark the blonde had found particularly enticing, up until that moment, and now deems nearly revolting. She can't muster a proper reaction, too distracted by the word 'abuse' that is spiraling through her mind.

Regina's eyes sparkle with defiance, despite the wariness. "It was. Did you do the same with your wife? Is that why she left you?"

As the grin disappears from Gold's face, his appearance becomes even more crazed. "Why did you summon me, Madame Mayor?" he asks, but it's challenging – as if he already knows the answer but wants Regina to bring it up first.

"I need to find my son."

The smile finds its way back onto the man's face, while his eyes dart for the briefest moment to Emma, only to immediately return to Regina. "Right. _Your_ son." He giggles. "But what would I get in return?"

Regina doesn't hesitate for a second. "Anything."

Emma doesn't think that to be a good idea; she doesn't trust this man, nor does she think that he will honestly respect his part of the deal. She does, however, trust Regina's judgment, and she seems to know quite intimately Gold's ploys.

"I want _her_." He points a long-nailed finger at Emma, and both women tense immediately.

"Not a chance," Regina defies. "He's my son, he ran away because of me. I am the one who's making this bargain with you, it's me who should pay the price-"

"Deal." Regina's head snaps to Emma, but it's too late – she's already shaking Gold's callous hand. She knows it was the right thing to do – the noble one. "I came here to help you find your son, didn't I?" Emma turns back to the man. "What is it that you want me to do?"

He looks at her dead in the eye. "You steal people, don't you?" He waits for her nod before continuing, "I want you to bring me someone."

Emma shrugs, baffled by the simplicity of the man's request and entirely sure that there is more to it than he is letting on at the moment. "Sure," she says, though it comes out as more of a question. "Is that it?"

"Oh, it's more than enough, Miss Swan, thank you. I shall give you the details of this commission after your return."

Emma is pretty sure neither she nor Regina have mentioned the fact that they need to travel. The fact that Gold seems to be aware of it unsettles Emma, and she wonders what else he might know – and how much power that gives him.

"Now," he prompts, "what is it you need me for, exactly?"

Regina doesn't reply; instead, she walks past him and leads the way up the stairs and through the hallway, opening one of the doors Emma hasn't yet dared to venture past. The blonde assumes it's the place Henry disappeared from, and as soon as she enters the room (after Regina, but Gold is behind her and she can feel the thin hair on the back of her neck stick up) she realizes it's Henry's bedroom.

"I can still perceive the trace of Henry's magic," Regina begins, "but it's much too faint for me to identify the specific amount of energy he used."

"If you needed to know _when_ he went, dearie, you only had to ask!" The man lets out another high-pitched snicker, before waving his hand dramatically and producing a small piece of paper, which he then hands to Regina with another flourish. "Here you go, Madam Mayor. I'll be back soon to collect what you owe me." He grins at Emma one last time and teleports away, leaving behind thick, dark smoke.

Emma is about to go back downstairs, when Regina grabs her arm. "Thank you," she says, her eyes piercing through Emma's. "You really didn't have to make that deal."

"Of course I did." She offers the brunette a shy smile. "But there is something you can do for me, in return…"

"Name it," Regina hurries to say, but at the sly look on the other woman's face she turns hesitant.

"Tell me what your power is."

It's as if Regina metaphorically recoils at the words that leave Emma's mouth. After the first time she'd asked, Emma hadn't brought the matter up again, though her curiosity hadn't waned. She had tried to redirect several conversations in that direction, but to no avail. Now, she regrets having mentioned it, because behind Regina's eyes a storm is raging, decades-old anger and fear swirling furiously.

"I'm not telling you. I thought I'd made that clear."

"Why not?" Emma insists, against her better judgment. "It can't be worse than talking to animals!"

Regina abruptly turns away, walking purposely out of Henry's bedroom and down the stairs, but Emma is quick to follow. "Leave me alone, Miss Swan, it's better for the both of us." She is oozing purple smoke, a clear sign of her distress, but Emma doesn't desist.

"I'm not leaving you alone. I thought I'd made that clear." Emma teleports in front of Regina, blocking the way to the front door. "What are you so afraid of? That you're going to scare me off? That I won't help you to find Henry if I know your power?" She takes a step forward, trying to catch Regina's fleeing gaze. "I made you a promise. I will keep it no matter what."

Finally, the brunette meets Emma's eyes. With a voice as heavy as the atmosphere around them, she strains out, "It's dark, Miss Swan. My powers, my past- You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"I'm not saying you should show me or use it, but how hard is it to tell me? To trust me? It's been months-"

"Well, can you blame me?" Regina bites back. "Do _you_ trust _me_?"

Emma is taken aback by the question. "I trusted you enough to come all the way down from Boston to help you."

"And I trusted you enough to let you help me. We're even." A short silence follows Regina's words, broken only by the sound of the front door shutting behind Emma.

* * *

She doesn't go back to the mansion, that night. She materializes her VW, her beautiful car that has been rotting in her building's garage in Boston for two months, and spends the night roaming the streets aimlessly, napping erratically when the exhaustion becomes too much.

She isn't sure what's gotten into her. She isn't one to pry – she hates it when people do it to her and she regrets having pushed Regina. She supposes it's mainly due to the fact that Regina knows nearly everything about Emma, but is still too closed off to open up in return. Regardless, it wasn't Emma's place to insist as much as she did, to expect from Regina anything but instructions to learn how to go back in time.

It's not like they were friends.

At six thirty the next morning, she pulls over in front of _Granny's_ and waits for Ruby to open up, before entering the diner and settling down at the counter. She orders the first of many coffees, her shoulders hunched and her gaze lost, drawing Ruby and Granny's attention.

"You look rough, Ems," pans Ruby. She slides over a bear claw. "Fresh out of the oven. On the house."

Emma gladly accepts the pastry and mumbles a thank you, though she can't swallow past the lump in her throat.

Guilt and resentment are fighting for the upper hand inside of her, and she doesn't know why she's taking this so seriously. She's been alone her whole life; she's used to people who don't get attached to her, and she's used to not getting attached to people. This is nothing new.

"So," Ruby ventures after a couple of minutes, "wanna talk about it?"

Emma interrupts her sulking to shoot her a grateful yet tired smile. "Nah, Rubes, but thank you."

"If it's any consolation, she looks just as bad as you."

Emma crinkles her forehead. "How would you know…?"

Ruby nods her chin at the glass door, through which Emma can clearly see Regina approaching tentatively. Her hair isn't as flawless as always, she is wearing the same clothes as the previous day and a pang of emotion shoots through Emma's chest at the sight.

She lowers her gaze back onto the coffee in her hands when the door opens, the bell above it chiming along. The ticking of Regina's heels announces her approaching the counter, and Emma sees from the corner of her eye as she sits right beside her. Emma's skin seems to prickle at the tension between them.

Noticing the heaviness of the situation, Ruby politely leaves them alone, joining Granny in the kitchen.

Several moments of silence go by, during which both women steal fleeting glances at each other. Regina's eyes are circled by dark bags, Emma notices, and again, the guilt resurfaces.

"I'm sorry," she says then, knowing she was ultimately in the wrong. "I shouldn't have insisted."

Regina doesn't reply for a while. Emma is about to get up and leave, certain that the other woman doesn't want to talk, when Regina murmurs, "Do you want to know what my power is, Emma?" She pauses for a second. Then, with raw disgust in her voice, she spits out, "I take people's lives. I pry my hands into their chest, wrap my fingers around their heart and pull it out. If I squeeze hard enough, I can kill them as easily as blowing out a candle; if I don't, I can control their every action, make them do whatever I please, whether they want it or not.

"My mother used the same power to terrify people; to use their fear of her as a means to subdue them. She was nothing short of a dictator, hated by everyone but powerful enough to suppress any rebellion that burst out. She raised me to become like her, and whenever I disobeyed, she would make me pay the same way she did everyone else.

"Zelena didn't have this ability, so my mother abandoned her. She came back almost thirty years ago to make her pay; she killed my mother and tried to kill me, too, envious that I lived the life she'd wanted. She didn't care about the casualties her actions would produce. Little did she know, I would have done anything to give up that life, to swap places with her; and by being so angry and careless, she had become just like my mother – the monster she'd so passionately wanted to be." Regina takes a deep breath, her vent not over yet. "No matter how hard I tried to escape my powers and my mother, I never managed. Her death was a liberation that I needed desperately, as the whole town did. I took her place as ruler of Storybrooke by default, and people feared me almost as they did her."

After a short silence, during which Emma lets it all sink in, she asks, "Did you ever kill anyone?"

A pregnant pause. "Yes."

"Do you regret it?"

For a long time, Emma thinks Regina isn't going to answer that. Then, almost ashamed at the admission, "Yes," she chokes out. "I was eighteen, victim of my mother's abuse and my father's powerlessness and helplessly in love with a stable boy. I was taking my trusty Rocinante for a ride, when I saw a little girl – about eleven or twelve – dangling dangerously off the side of an out-of-control horse. As any decent human being would do, I hurried over to help her, and consequently became this… idealized _savior_ , in her eyes as much as her father's. He proposed to me and my mother accepted on my behalf. That same night, I asked Daniel to elope, but the girl saw us… ultimately, she told Mother about Daniel and I. My mother ripped his heart out in front of me and crushed it to dust." A gasp accidentally erupts from Emma. She can't even remotely fathom how _anyone_ – let alone someone's own _mother_! – could possibly be so inconsiderate as to force someone to endure such horror. And for what? Being in love?

She had heard about controlling parents, about arranged marriages; but this kind of psychological abuse… Emma can't seem to wrap her head around it. What can push someone to scar their own daughter like this? To kill the love of her life in front of her just for _wealth_?

Regina's voice brings her back to reality. "I ended up marrying the girl's father, developing a toxic amount of hate for both of them, forced to endure such horrors, _every night_ …" The implication of Regina's words is clear to Emma. She feels nauseous at it, her mind creating images that she will surely have a hard time erasing. "I killed him. I thought I hated them enough not to feel guilt, but I do – every time I look at Mary Margaret I see an orphan, and I know I am to blame. I hate her for what she's done to me, but now I hate myself more."

Mary Margaret? Emma is shaken by the revelation as much as she is by the entire story, but finally things start to make sense: Regina's relationship with the teacher, the absence of Henry's father in the photographs scattered around the house, Zelena's thirst for blood.

Regina continues, unaware of Emma's musings. "I suppose that, at first, I only saw it as vengeance, not as the act of taking one's life or of hurting another person. I only wanted to get rid of _him_. To be free." She scoffs humorlessly, not a trace of amusement in her bitter smile. "The gravity of what I had done only really dawned on me when my mother told me how _proud_ of me she was."

"You know," Emma tentatively ventures after a second, when she's sure Regina's story is over, "I never knew my parents. They left me on the side of the road the day I was born, so I grew up in foster care. For the first time in my life, after hearing about your mother, I'm kinda _glad_."

Regina seems to appreciate the attempt at lightening the tension, because she looks over at Emma and, shaking her head, she lets out a chuckle. "You're unbelievable, Miss Swan."

With a shrug, she holds up the pastry she hasn't yet eaten and offers, "Bear claw?"

Regina accepts.

* * *

They decide to walk back to the mansion. Or, well, Regina firmly refuses to get anywhere near Emma's car, let alone ride in it, so they bicker for a total of ten seconds until Emma decides to walk with her.

Their arms are brushing lightly against each other as they stroll side-by-side, making Emma's skin tingle. To distract herself from investigating the reason behind such a reaction, she inquires, "What was on the note?" which is actually a very important matter.

"Pardon?"

"The note Gold gave you yesterday? You know, before I ruined everything?"

"You haven't ruined anything, Emma," Regina reassures sweetly, her hand covering Emma's for the briefest of seconds. "We all make mistakes. God knows I have." Erasing the regret from her tone, she continues, "I completely forgot about the note, actually."

They've arrived to their destination, by now; inside Regina's house, they find the slip of paper sitting on an end table, completely neglected by both.

Picking it up carefully, Regina reads, "October fifteenth, 1983."

"So, this is it, huh? We're leaving today." There's an odd sense of dread clenching at Emma's gut; not because of the trip itself, but because soon enough she will have to go back to Boston, to her old, meaningless life. Away from Storybrooke, away from magic… away from Regina.

Misinterpreting her tone, Regina asks, "Nervous?"

"Yeah." It's a lie, but Regina doesn't seem to notice.

"We've practiced plenty. It will be just fine." Fiddling with the piece of paper, Regina is exuding an insecurity that reveals just how little she believes in what she's just said. "It's not the day of Zelena's attack."

"What?" That's curious. Emma had assumed it was, considering the month and year.

"My sister didn't come to Storybrooke until days after. If it hadn't been for Gold, we might have missed Henry entirely."

Emma tilts her head to the side in confusion. "Wait, how would that have been possible? Even if we had gone back to the day Zelena attacked, Henry would have still been there. It's been, what?, two months since your son left, so he must be currently in December of 1983. We would have crossed paths with him."

"Actually, that's not the case: ideally, Henry isn't in 1983, currently." Regina runs a hand through her hair as she tries to formulate an explanation as clearly as possible. "See, if you and I go back to October fifteenth now, Henry will have just arrived as well. That might take us an hour as much as a week to actually find him, but regardless, when we do, we will travel back to the present – to the exact moment we left in the first place. That means that Henry won't have remained in the past for longer than the time it will take us to find him and come back."

Emma nods, having understood what Regina has said despite her lack of sleep. Her head is starting to hurt, though, so they agree to take their time to get ready and relax, so the Emma will be able to focus on her task more easily.

She takes a bath. It's soothing and alleviates the pains in her back and neck – she has spent the whole night in a car, after all – as well as her headache. When she goes back downstairs, she finds Regina pacing the living room, her anxiety the exact opposite of the ideal mood.

"What if he gets hurt, Emma?" she blurts out. "What if they _see_ him? Where is he going to get food and water?"

Emma approaches her tentatively. "You raised him, so I'm one-hundred percent sure that he's smart enough to figure it out. Besides, if everything goes according to plan, he won't be staying there for long. Worrying won't do us, or him, any good."

They've had the same conversation multiple times, over the past month. Regina losing the put-together attitude she usually sports when her worry became too much to handle, and Emma doing her best to ease it away. It usually ended up with the two of them curled up on the couch watching _Game of Thrones_ , but they can't afford the same treat right now.

Regina looks at Emma intently for a moment, before nodding with newfound resolution and teleporting the two of them to the attic. They've thought a lot about the best place to be in, to travel back in time, and they've come to the conclusion that the attic of Regina's house would be it, since she only started using it after adopting Henry. Materializing anywhere else would be extremely dangerous, considering they cannot be seen by anyone, not even 'past-Regina', at any cost.

Since the attic is also the place where they have been practicing for the past weeks, the space has been arranged to result in as comfort as possible for both Emma and Regina. Amongst old high chairs, piles of schoolbooks and dusty boxes, a large area has been cleared out. As Emma settles on the single cushion that occupies it, Regina takes her place right behind her, kneeling on a sleeping mat to avoid hurting her knees.

"Do you have the bag?" Emma asks while she materializes her own backpack, containing a change of clothes, water and candy bars.

"Yes," Regina breathes out, a vague clattering confirming her words. "It's time."

She runs her hands over Emma's shoulders for a moment, massaging them lightly to help her relax; then, just as they've always done, she places her fingers on Emma's temples, applying the smallest amount of pressure as she draws small circles to soothe her nerves. As she closes her eyes, Emma can only perceive Regina: her breath tickling her neck, her perfume filling the air, her curves brushing against her back. When her head begins to spin, she isn't sure if it's due to the fact that they're crossing time dimensions, or Regina alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

AUTUMN 1983

The first thing Emma notices when she opens her eyes is that the light is different. It comes from the same individual window, but it's cooler now, as if the sky were overcast – which it wasn't when the two women left.

Then, she realizes that the attic is completely empty, except for sporadic cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. Even the cushion she had been sitting on has disappeared.

She can still feel Regina's presence behind her, though her fingers are no longer massaging her temples, a pounding headache replacing their effect. Turning around to check on Regina and confirming that she is alright, Emma asks, "What time is it?"

Of course mundane objects like their cellphones or wristwatches wouldn't manage to stay in line with the time change, which is why Regina hurries to the window: the clock tower is facing them, its hands announcing that it is just over four o'clock.

"Time has changed," Regina confirms, "it's not September nineteenth anymore, that's for sure." She turns her head slightly and Emma sees her look at the black Mercedes that's pulling out of the driveway. "We're in luck. I'm leaving."

Without a second thought, Regina teleports the two of them back downstairs. Emma is surprised to see the differences in the décor; for some reason, she had just assumed Regina hadn't changed anything during the past three decades. Yet here she is – in a black-and-white version of the house she has been living in as of lately, all cool tones and geometric shapes.

Before she has the time to elaborate those thoughts, Regina comes back from the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate in hand, which – _when had she even left the foyer?_ Emma is out of it she realizes with a start, too weary to function properly.

"How are you feeling?" Regina inquires gently, her hand stroking Emma's back in a soothing motion, while the latter blows on the scalding beverage.

"Why don't you poof?" is the only thing that leaves Emma's mouth, and Regina is so befuddled by it that she is at a loss for words. Catching up on her disorientation, Emma specifies, "If you can just poof everywhere, why even use a car? It doesn't make any sense."

The ghost of a smile plays on Regina's lips. "I like to use magic as little as possible. It keeps me rooted to reality. It's the same for most people, but there are a limited few who still prefer convenience."

"I like your power," Emma comments then. Regina tenses up at that, but Emma feels the need to express her opinion on the matter. "I think it's super badass. You shouldn't be ashamed of it because of what your mother did. You should embrace your past, not run from it, because it made you who you are today and I kinda like who you are today." It's slurred and Emma's eyes are half-closed, but it hits Regina all the same. "Yeah, I kinda like you."

The more seconds go by, the worst Emma gets. It's either that or Regina actually is blushing, which would all kinds of ridiculous in and of itself.

"Drink up. We don't know how long past-me will be gone for, so you don't have much time to recover." Regina is back to her usual no-nonsense self; but the way her hand is resting on Emma's thigh is enough for the blonde to understand that she's grateful.

So Emma carefully sips the still-warm hot chocolate, the high amount of sugar in it perceptibly restoring Emma's strength; too bad they hear a car door being slammed shut before she's done drinking.

Heart now beating frantically and adrenaline fuelling her, Emma curses under her breath and follows Regina through the foyer and into the kitchen just in time. The front door opens and Regina drags her out through the back one, closing it behind herself slowly and silently. Crouching underneath a kitchen window, they spy past-Regina's every movement; and when she enters the living room on the other side of the house, they run through the backyard and into the woods that surround it, feeling finally safe that they're hidden.

"I still have your mug," Emma points out.

Regina shoots her a confident smile. "I lost it ages ago. At least now I know how."

They venture deeper into the forest, figuring that the best way to escape potential encounters is by staying in the least-accessible part of it – the one surrounded by protuberant tree roots and drooping leafy branches. With each step they take, Emma grows more and more incredulous that Regina is actually trekking in heels and not complaining for a second. She's almost sure she's just full-on hallucinating by now.

After about fifteen minutes they stop, a sheen of sweat covering their foreheads from the hike. "We should be safe here," Regina dictates, and sits down on a log, Emma following suit.

"Did you check what day it is?" There was a calendar in the kitchen, Emma remembers; she just didn't think to check herself.

Regina nods. "October fifteenth. You did it." There's a hint of pride in her voice and her smile that has Emma's heart skip a beat. For some reason, she finds she wants to receive that smile more often. "It's a Friday, which means past-me will be going over to Mal's after dinner and spend the night. I imagine that, when I left earlier, it was to go to the store to pick up a bottle of wine. She likes this Pinot that I absolutely hate, so I never have any at home…"

Emma smiles and nods nonchalantly at that, though in truth there's a _vortex_ of emotions suddenly swirling inside of her. Still grinning, she asks, "Uh, hey! So, just out of curiosity, what- why were you spending the night at _Mal_ 's?"

"We used to date. I broke up with her after Zelena attacked."

Emma's smile is still in place, probably larger than it should be. Her eyes are burning, so she isn't sure she has even blinked, yet. "Huh-uh, yeah, cool, no, that's great."

"Emma?" Regina calls slowly, the blonde's behavior visibly freaking her out. "Oh, god," she says after a second, realization dawning on her. Emma's heart starts beating frantically, because she's _not_ ready for Regina to address something even Emma hasn't figured out yet. But Regina sighs and takes on the hostile look she used to sport back in Boston, and Emma's gut fills with dread. "You're homophobic, aren't you?"

Emma blinks. Once. Twice. Then relief floods her and comes out as a snorted laugh. "Yup, you caught me." Regina seems to pick up on the sarcasm, because she arches a brow. "I'm bisexual, Regina."

"Oh. Oh!" Her eyes are wide with surprise, and for some reason she keeps nodding. "I see. Good to know."

"Right." Silence falls on the two of them, who are avoiding eye contact almost desperately. "So," Emma starts then, deciding the best approach to defuse the awkwardness is to go back to more important matters, "if you were in your son's room when he disappeared, shouldn't we have waited for him there, or at least closer to the house?"

Regina shakes her head. "I perceived his magic, when we walked past his room. He arrived before us, he could be anywhere by now."

"Where do you think he might be hiding?"

"The woods are our best guess. He's a smart boy, he knows he cannot be seen. He will probably wait until nighttime before going anywhere."

Emma quickly pulls her hair up in a ponytail. "We should start looking, then. Though I'm guessing it will be completely useless, considering how wide these woods are…"

And it is. After hours upon hours of searching high and low, Emma and Regina haven't made any progress whatsoever – unless getting bitten by a horde of mosquitoes and covering their ankles in nettle rashes is considered progress.

Well, to be fair, that is the condition _Emma_ is in; Regina is pretty much as good as new, if not for the disheveled hair and smudged make-up. Emma still can't figure out how she did it.

So, predictably, Henry is nowhere to be found; now the sun has set and Emma and Regina can barely see, in the dim moonlight. Not that there's much they can do, other than wait for the streets to clear out and people to go to sleep.

It's three in the morning when they decide to venture out of the woods, hungry in spite of the chocolate bars and in desperate need of a shower.

Main Street is completely empty and oddly depressing. In the dark, lampposts cast sporadic cones of light, but they do nothing to erase the lack of _life_. It reminds Emma of those dystopian movies, of the post-apocalyptic state of cities. It hits her, then and there, that she has gotten attached to Storybrooke; and it acts as a gut-wrenching reminder of the fact that, when this adventure will be over, she will have to leave. It's only a matter of days now, if not even hours.

They walk along the street, making sure to steer clear of the lights, until they reach the grocery store.

"What exactly are we doing here?" Regina asks skeptically, once they've rounded the corner and come face-to-face with the back entrance.

"Well, Madame Mayor," says Emma, bending over to fiddle with the lock, "you may be good at lots of things, but B&Es are _my_ specialty." She straightens up and pushes the door open, before mockingly bowing and offering, "After you."

They enter the building and find themselves in the storage room, which they scour attentively before retrieving some essentials – though that seems to include dishware, towels, a pop-up camping tent and mat, binoculars and even some clothes. At Emma's 'are-you-serious' face she just responds, "Don't worry, I'm paying," and resumes her shopping, though she has the guts to put the pack of _Twinkies_ that Emma picked out back in its box.

After they've walked into the store, put their purchases in several bags and left enough money in the cash register, they make their way back to their refuge in the woods, hoping the clattering of Regina's pans doesn't attract too much attention.

They set up camp in a clearing, Regina tending to the fires (yes, two of them: one for the pot she's using to cook pasta and one for the pan where she is heating up some sauce) while Emma is building the tent. They eat in disposable plastic plates what Emma deems to be 'the best bad pasta' she's ever eaten, which earns her a smile from a very disheartened Regina.

Since they're not far from the community pool, they climb over a gate and take turns showering and brushing their teeth as quickly as they can, before hurrying back to their temporary accommodation in the clothes Regina bought earlier that night – oversized men's T-shirts and cargo pants, the most comfortable things she could find that could also work as pajamas.

Before actually going on this journey, Emma had though she would enjoy the experience of camping – she'd never had the chance to go, as a kid; none of her foster parents ever cared enough to invest in summer holidays or activities in general. However, Regina is turning out to be just the worst companion she could have ever found: complaining about the practicality of home appliances half the time, she is now claiming it was Emma who had forgotten to buy a camping mat for herself. (It's obvious that Regina had mistakenly bought a single-sized one instead of a double-sized; but she's too proud to admit her slip, and Emma is nice enough to humor her.)

So here they are, locked up inside the tent, laying down facing each other and… well, bickering. Go figure.

"I'm telling you," Emma is saying, "we are never going to fit on this thing unless we spoon!"

"And I am telling you that I have no intention of _spooning_ with you any time soon. You can sleep on the floor for all I care."

Emma lets out a frustrated grunt. "Listen, Regina, it's three AM, I've been awake for nearly twenty hours straight and I've carried us through a twenty-eight years-long time warp. Get that stick out of your ass and spoon with me, woman!"

Regina purses her lips; Emma expects her to insist, but to her surprise she grumbles under her breath and reluctantly turns her back to Emma.

As she scoots closer, the blonde can't help the smile that breaks on her face at Regina wanting to be the little spoon; and as if she'd read her mind, the brunette justifies, "You're taller than me, it makes more sense."

But then Emma feels Regina's body pressed to her front – and they fit together so perfectly it's almost impossible – and her grin fades away.

She slips her arm around the other woman's waist and rests her hand on her stomach. Breathing in the intoxicating scent that is just _Regina_ , Emma wholeheartedly hopes the brunette can't hear or feel how fast her heart is beating.

* * *

Emma wakes up alone, the next day. She steps out of the tent only to find Regina busying herself with breakfast, a faraway look on her face.

"Hey," she greets, "you okay?"

Regina looks up at the voice and nods absentmindedly. Emma imagines her mood to be related to her son, so she drops the matter entirely.

"What time is it?" she asks. The sky is overcast, today, so she can't tell by the position of the sun; but Regina seems to always have an answer for everything, so she is confident this time won't be any different.

"A little over nine AM, I think. It's quite late, but we had gone to bed-"

"Sh!" Emma is on full alert. She thinks she's heard the rhythmic crunch of fallen leaves that only steps could cause, and she is hoping against hope that they belong to either an animal or Regina's kid.

Regina is on edge too, now; she is standing up and approaching Emma as silently as possible.

The steps become louder and louder. Emma decides to stop time: time-warping powers don't work on people with magical abilities, but they do work on animals. If anything, she will find out which of the two it is.

As quietly as she can, Emma snaps her fingers. The fire Regina had lit up to cook breakfast stops crackling and stills, and so do the birds closest to Emma; but the steps persist, so she sets the clearing back into motion, grabs Regina by the arm and drags her behind a tree. Regina is quick enough to make their campsite entirely disappear, and the purple mist has barely managed to clear out when two women step into the meadow.

"Are those…?" Emma whispers, but Regina is suddenly pressing her against the tree, her hand covering Emma's mouth and her eyes filled with panic.

Mary Margaret – _past_ -Mary Margaret, _pregnant_ -Mary Margaret – is strolling peacefully alongside a giant wolf, though Emma, amongst the shock of knowing that Mary Margaret had a child, can somehow tell it's Ruby. Emma carefully peeks from behind the tree: Mary Margaret is now sitting down, though Ruby is pacing stealthily, her paws barely making noise. She is sniffing around, Emma can tell, and as she suddenly turns back into human form – a very naked human form, though Mary Margaret seems entirely unfazed by it – she tells her companion, "Someone was just here."

Mary Margaret materializes a red cape and hands it to Ruby, who wraps it around herself as the other woman clumsily sits down and sighs, "I know you're worried about me, but nobody is going after my baby."

"We need to get out of here," Regina says, so lowly Emma can barely hear her. She looks up at the trees and Emma understands immediately: Mary Margaret can talk to animals; that includes the birds and the squirrels currently hanging out right above them.

Ruby's protesting voice rings loud and clear. "But Gold saw-"

"I know what Gold saw," Mary Margaret interrupts her, "but I have no intention of putting my trust into a _prophecy_."

Emma motions for Regina to hide her face, so that the animals won't recognize her (which is just absurd). The brunette complies and, slowly and quietly, they back away from the perimeter of the meadow and go deeper into the woods. Once they are at a safe enough distance, Regina teleports them away.

As purple smoke dissipates from around them, Emma finds herself in a circular room with a spiral staircase in the middle and a single, small window through which she can see the Maine sea.

"A lighthouse?" she asks, taking in her surroundings. Their camping gear is on the far side of the room, the fire somehow still burning bright.x

"It was the only inhabited place that I could think of. Nobody has set foot in here for years." She grazes her hand along the dusty banister with a wistful look. "This used to be my father's and my secret place."

Emma's eyebrows shoot up in curiosity. "Your father?"

She has never really heard about Regina's parents, if not for the few sporadic mentions of her mother. Considering how despotic she was and how vengeful her stepsister was, Emma isn't surprised that 'family' isn't Regina's favorite topic. It isn't hers, either.

But there's a smile, albeit wistful, on her face when she says, "Yes. We used to come here every Sunday morning to escape Mother. She used to work on weekends, but Father's law firm was closed on Sunday; it was the only moment we could get away from her."

"Sounds like you loved him very much."

Regina nods. "His name was Henry." Emma smiles at that. "Unfortunately, he died long before he could meet his grandson."

"I'm sure they would've gotten along well." She squeezes Regina's arm in sympathy and gets a watery smile in return. "Why a lighthouse?"

Regina gives her a small shrug and approaches carefully one of the windows. "He was quite fond of Virginia Woolf." She waves her hand and the pair of binoculars she bought the previous day materializes from thin air. "I used to bring Henry here when he was smaller. Perhaps he will think of this place as a hideout and we will manage to return home soon enough."

Using the binoculars to spy on the town below them, Regina looks for traces of her son. She gives up half an hour later, and Emma takes her place by the window. Instead of aiming the binoculars at the town, however, she turns to the left and studies the edge of the forest, hoping to see anything that might resemble a boy. She doesn't have any luck, unfortunately, but she does see Mary Margaret and Ruby leaving the woods and continuing their stroll along the seafront.

"I didn't know she had a child," says Emma after a beat.

Not knowing who she was referring to, Regina shot her a confused look from the fireplace, where she was fixing up some lunch.

"Mary Margaret," Emma explains, and Regina purses her lips as she looks down at the food. "She told me her whole life story, when we drove up from Boston, but she never mentioned a kid."

"Miss Blanchard lost her child soon after its birth." Regina's expression is stoic, but Emma sees a shadow of reluctant compassion behind the indifference.

Emma freezes at the information, knowing all-too-well what the cheerful teacher must have gone through. "It must have been hard," she chokes out, "spending the past three decades without her child and her husband."

"She has always had a way of finding hope in the most hopeless situations." Regina says. Emma sits down on the floor beside her. "Her life was never easy; she lost her mother when she was really young, then I made her existence as much of a living hell as I could. She never stopped hoping for a brighter future, she never let the pain take over, not even when she lost everything." She sighs, her gaze lost in years-old memories. "Miss Blanchard believes in happy endings, and I hate her for it, because she took mine away."

"Have you…" Emma clears her voice. "Have you ever considered finding your happy ending elsewhere? With… someone else?"

"Why, of course," Regina says, and Emma's heart picks up speed. "Henry makes me as happy as I can be. I always thought he and I would be enough, and yet look at me now – looking for my son in the past because I wasn't- maybe if there had been another parent-"

It's not what Emma meant, but regardless, "Stop it, Regina," she orders, her hand landing on Regina's leg. "I'm sure you are an amazing mother. I haven't seen the kid, yet, but I'm _sure_ of it. I spent my entire childhood with people who should never have been anywhere near children, and they were nothing like you. I would have killed to have someone as caring and compassionate as you to take care of me." Regina's lips are parted in surprise, her eyes glistening in the afternoon sunlight, reflecting the raw emotion she is experiencing. "I also know what it's like to find out your birthparents didn't want you. You know you will never get a chance to lash out at _them_ , so you redirect your pain and your anger towards something else. Yes, you made a mistake by not telling Henry he was adopted, but that isn't the real reason why he got angry."

"Emma, I…" Regina stutters, her face ever-so-close to the blonde. "There is something I need to tell you."

The frantic pace of her heart is now accompanied by heavy breathing, caused solely by the contemplation of what might happen in the next few seconds. She hadn't realized just how badly she had wanted, she had _needed_ , to kiss Regina, until this very moment. It goes beyond mere attraction, she is starting to realize, but her mind is too fuzzy to make sense of the sensations running through her at the moment. "What is it?" she manages to choke out, unfocused eyes transfixed on the other woman's plum lips.

She is instinctively leaning in, attracted by Regina like a moth is to a flame, when she whispers, shakily, "They're hereditary."

Emma blinks, sure she has missed something. "Huh?"

"They are not powers," says Regina, squeezing her eyes shut. Emma has come back to reality, the moment broken. "It's not _magic_. It's _science_. These abilities that we have are a gene."

Emma's mind is racing. So many dots are starting to connect, but she isn't entirely sure she _wants_ to understand. "What are you saying, Regina?"

"They travel through blood. Some of them are recessive and skip a generation or two, but most of them aren't. The same ability is usually transmitted directly from parent to son."

A step back, then another. "Look at me, Regina," Emma orders, anger and hurt bubbling up inside of her and making her tremble. Regina opens her eyes, shining with unshed tears, and locks her gaze with Emma. "What. Are. You. Saying?"

"October twenty-second, 1983," she says, "the day Mary Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan's daughter was born. The same day that Zelena let a tornado into Storybrooke, forcing them to send the child away." A pause. "They're your parents, Emma."

She inhales sharply at those last words. She wants to let her mind and her heart loose, to let herself process this and _feel_ it, but there's one last piece missing to the puzzle. "How did you find me?" She has already deduced the answer, but needs to hear it out loud.

So, "August fifteenth, 2001," Regina narrates, and now the tears are running profusely down her face, "you gave birth to a baby boy in Boston and gave him up. The same day, an adoption agency I'd been in contact with called me. I kept track of the birth-mother ever since." She takes a deep breath before letting out, "Henry is your son."

White mist, and Emma is gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Emma appears in the miraculously empty storage room of the grocery store – the first place she had thought of while teleporting away. She pulls the hood of her sweatshirt over her head as an attempt to disguise herself and walks out the back door, heading for the woods.

It's the first time she's walked around 1983-Storybrooke in the daylight, and it's so identical to the town she has lived in for the past month that she finds an odd sense of comfort in its familiarity. Unsurprisingly, it's easy to pretend that she could just hop on her VW and drive back to Boston, ready to spend the rest of her life pretending none of this ever happened.

The fact that she prefers even just _imagining_ running away to actually facing the revelations Regina has just dropped on her, says a lot about Emma. If there's one thing she has always known for sure, it's that dealing with her issues isn't her forte.

Once she gets to the woods, Emma realizes she has no idea where to go. She will return to the lighthouse at some point, of course, she just needs some time alone to process everything… but, as of right now, venturing deeper in the forest is her only option, and it doesn't sound like a good idea, considering she _really_ doesn't know it. She will have to rely on her orientation skills, and hopefully that will be enough for her to find her way back to town, eventually.

Emma keeps walking even when the gravity of what Regina has told her truly hits her. She needs to be moving, the difficulty of the hike working as an outlet for the pent-up anxiety in her stomach caused by the emotions swirling through her.

Which mostly consist of betrayal.

For twenty-eight years she has been looking for her parents – someone to blame for her shitty childhood, an addressee for the anger that has been building up more and more as each day passed. Now that she does have a target, as well as the answers to those questions she has been asking herself obsessively her whole life (Where am I from? What are these powers? Why did they leave me?), the only thing she can focus on is that Regina had known all along and never said anything.

She could finally let it all out; once she got back to the present, she could go to Mary Margaret and David and just vent until the pain in her chest would finally ease… And yet she couldn't bring herself to blame them, not really. She does blame Regina for not coming clean immediately, especially considering whom they have gone back in time for, but Emma has no doubt she will forgive her as soon as she sees her again. It only proves how her feelings aren't mutual, which is another issue entirely.

And then there's him. _Henry_. Her little Duckling that she gave up a decade ago, the boy who is probably as angry at her as Emma herself has been at her birth-parents.

She can't help but be unbelievably grateful that Regina adopted him, giving him the life Emma had hoped so desperately he'd have, a life she could never have granted him. And she was going to meet him, soon enough.

Even that, Regina had kept secret. She had known who Emma was since before coming to Boston, she had sought her out _because_ and _thanks to_ that. And she gets why Regina didn't tell her, at the beginning – Emma would have fled the second Regina mentioned her parents or her son. But after Emma had come to Storybrooke, after she had agreed to help Regina… it was on their son's birthday that Emma had arrived, and accompanied by Mary Margaret no less. Emma wouldn't have left after that. The fact that Regina had kept it from her only proved that she didn't trust Emma, and though it was understandable, Emma couldn't help the disappointment.

The forest has grown even denser, by the time she decides to interrupt the musings and maybe talk it all out with Regina. Ever-so-tall trees loom over her, their thick foliage impeding the sunlight to filter through. That's when she hears it – a grunt, barely loud enough for her to hear over the intense chirping of birds. Cautiously, she tries to follow the noise in search of its source, mentally going over the first-aid class she had had to take back in high school just in case.

Soon enough she comes across a boy – brown hair, brown eyes and pale skin, probably around eight or nine years old, sitting straight-legged on the ground and looking at his ankle with utter betrayal in his eyes.

He lifts his gaze when he hears Emma, and immediately tries to stand up and get away – to no avail, because he crashes back to the ground with a grunt of pain.

"Hey, kid, it's okay," she says slowly, as if talking to a scared animal. She ignores determinedly the voice in her head that's been telling her that she should not be seen by anyone, deciding that an injured child alone in the woods will just have to be an exception.

"I don't need your help!" he bites back, the furrow between his brows so familiar. She takes in his appearance: dirty face and hands, torn clothes, dark circles around his eyes, and the look of complete loss, of loneliness-masked-by-fierceness that Emma herself used to have as a child – a child that had no innocence left inside because the world had snatched it away.

"Where are your parents?" she asks, still several feet away from him, keeping a safe distance so as to not scare him off.

He looks away at that – a sore subject, apparently. "I don't know. I ran away."

Emma doesn't inquire further, knowing all-too-well that invasive questions are not the way to go about this. Instead, she takes a step closer, slowly, studying the boy's reactions. When he doesn't try to get away, she kneels down in front of him. "Can I take a look at that?"

The boy shuffles back at her question, still cautiously distrustful. "Who are you?"

"My name's Emma," she offers with a reassuring smile, and it works. He stops trying to get away and finally lets her feel his ankle, now starting to swell and bruise. "It's sprained," she concludes after a few seconds. When she doesn't receive a response from the boy, she adds, "You should probably avoid walking on it for a while."

"Well, I can't fly, now, can I? _It_ 's just going to have to deal with the fact that I _will_ walk on it."

Sassy and stubborn. Again, how familiar. "Well," Emma mocks, "it's either that or a permanent limp. You decide."

He seems to cave in, at that. Furrow remaining but eyes losing a tad of wariness, the boy requests, "Help me up, please?"

They stand, Emma's arm around him to steady him. "Where are you headed?"

A shrug. "Anywhere."

"How'd you sprain your ankle?"

"I was sleeping in a tree and I fell off."

"Is that where you've been hiding from your parents?" Emma asks. "In a tree?" It sounds ridiculous out loud, but Emma is actually quite impressed with it – it's a nice strategy, if you don't want to be found. Nobody would ever think of looking for a missing boy in a tree.

The kid shrugs again. "My mom's probably not even looking for me."

"Why do you say that?" Neglect, abuse – that's something Emma's seen before. She feels drawn to this boy that reminds her so much of herself, too mature for his age but still innocent enough to believe that things can change for the better.

"She lied to me."

"People always lie, kid." She sighs, relieved. It's not as bad as she'd expected. Lies can be forgiven, with time and apologies. "I'm sure you have, too."

He looks guilty at that, his ears drawn back like a dog's. "She's not my real mother and she didn't care enough about me to tell me."

"Sounds like she cared enough to take care of you, though." With a grunt, Emma lifts the boy up and carries him piggyback-style, proceeding along the tree-flanked dirt path on her right. The boy lets the conversation drop, and Emma is sure he will be going back to his home before he even knows it.

They haven't been walking for long and it's still very early in the day, but the kid's head is resting limply on Emma's back. He clearly hasn't been sleeping well – pale skin marked by purplish under-eye bags are a clear indicator of that – and only now feels safe enough to rest. Emma is thinking of where they could find some food, since she can't go back to the lighthouse or to the grocery store; the boy is from 1983, so he would recognize Regina immediately, and Emma can't let that happen. She doesn't know how long she will be staying with the kid, and though she guesses it will only be a matter of days, she doesn't want Regina to think she ran away for good. She would have already been back by now, had she not bumped into the boy currently coiled up on her back, but Regina doesn't know that and Emma doesn't want her to worry.

Once she gets to the edge of the woods, close enough to town to hear cars drive by but not enough to be spotted by any of the passersby, she finally decides what to do.

Carefully, she lowers the boy to the ground and leans him against a tree; then she jogs east, towards Mifflin Street, and deeply hopes that Regina's work schedule is the same in 1983 as it was in 2011.

Leaving the cover of the forest, Emma sneaks into the backyard of the mansion and circles it, her back glued to the walls, until she can confirm that the Mercedes isn't there.

Her lock-picking kit is at the lighthouse, but she doesn't need it – she knows where Regina keeps her spare key, and surely enough she finds it in the flowerbed. Once inside the mansion, she hurries to get as much food and water as she can – which turns out to be a true challenge, since she doesn't even have her backpack to carry anything. Sticking to the bare minimum, she flees from the house mere minutes later and runs back to where her travelling companion is waiting.

She's not surprised when she finds him still knocked out where she left him – once his exhaustion had started to kick in, Emma had known immediately that there would be no waking him any time soon. He stirs a little when she picks him up again, but doesn't wake; and when she eases him back on the ground, this time a little further north, where a bed of leaves and moss can make him more comfortable.

A fire is crackling happily when he finally wakes, the sun just now starting to make its way west. "About time," quips Emma, curled up towards the warmth. "I got us food."

"What?" He's fully awake now, the prospect of filling his tummy an inexhaustible source of energy. "How'd you get it?"

"I have my ways," is all she says, which earns her an arched brow that reminds her so much of Regina that she's left breathless for a moment. "I stole it. If you don't want to eat stolen food, you know, that's fine by me…"

"I didn't say that," he grumbles, and a second later he's digging into the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Emma made. She was surprised to even find the ingredients, in the pre-Henry phase of Regina's house, but she won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

"You haven't told me your name," Emma comments as she watches the kid stuffs his face with food. He must have been starving, judging by how quickly he's eating.

"Ben," is his answer, and though Emma imagines it to be a lie, she goes with it. She won't be staying with this boy forever; he probably won't even remember her in the future, so his name only matters for the time being. It's just for convenience, to stop calling him 'kid' all the time.

They go to sleep well after the sun has set, snuggled up close together to keep warm. The fire is still burning, and Emma had slowed down time around it when Ben wasn't watching, just to make sure it would last throughout the night. An owl is hooting in the distance, and Emma wonders if Regina is hearing it too.

* * *

It's been three days since Emma met Ben. The fact that she can't google how to treat a sprained ankle is slowing things down – she'd made a promise to herself to help the kid until he was able to walk again, or until his grudge had worn off enough for him to get back home. She hasn't bumped into Regina since their 'fight' (but could it really be called a fight?), nor has she heard from her. She's afraid Regina might think that Emma has run off; that she's never coming back. Knowing how much of a pessimist Regina can be, at times, Emma's found herself hoping that the brunette doesn't think that she's gone back to the present without her.

Emma has wondered if there were a way for her to send Regina some kind of message, but really, she hasn't really had the time to actually think about it and figure something out.

Ben as it turns out, even if unable to walk can be just as hyper as any nine-year-old. Their traveling arrangement reminds Emma of Bran and Hodor from _Game of Thrones_ , which is not the best image, and the fact that the kid finds it extremely convenient as well as hilarious ("Pack mule," he has the audacity to call her) surely doesn't help. He uses Emma as a means to channel his pent-up energy, which makes no sense whatsoever, but he insists it works… and, well, Emma is falling in love with the kid, so she humors him constantly.

She has been impatiently waiting for the day he will go back home as much as she's been dreading it.

At three AM on Thursday, Ben and Emma are crouched outside Storybrooke's Laundromat – way smaller and older than the one in Boston, but it still reminds her of that time she bumped into Regina, a lifetime ago. The boy is holding a few metal sticks that Emma has deemed adequate for lock picking, and that is exactly what she's currently teaching him to do.

Tongue sticking out from the corner of his mouth as a sign of how much he's struggling, Ben has been following Emma's indications for the past five minutes, though the door is nowhere near being open.

"Angle this one up," Emma is telling him, her voice hushed. "Yeah, like that. Keep applying some pressure. Now wiggle the other one back and forth…"

Ben turns the tools to the side as the lock clicks. Emma tries the handle and, surely enough, the door opens.

"I did it!" the kid yells in the silence of the night, bouncing on the spot because he can't jump.

Hushing him hastily but smiling nonetheless, Emma drags him inside before anyone sees them. "Great job, kid! Up top!" She holds up a hand and Ben slaps it enthusiastically, his smile larger than Emma has ever seen it. "Now you know what to do next time you lock yourself out of your house."

"My mom keeps a spare key in the flowerbed," he says, though Emma isn't really listening, busy looking for the electric panel. She finds the switch that turns on the washing machines and steers clear off the one that turns on the lights. After Emma has managed to find some detergent, they shrug off their clothes, the awkwardness blessedly eased by the darkness, and throw them in one of the machines.

It has been a long time since they have last changed clothes, and they both _reek_. They have found ways to shower regularly, but it's obviously not enough. This trip was highly necessary.

Under the secrecy offered by the dark, Emma speeds up the washing machines, sure that the kid has no idea how long a spin cycle actually takes, and after a trip in the dryer, their clothes are warm and smell nice, so they don't hesitate to put them on.

"Let's get out of here before anyone sees us," Emma says. As Ben climbs on her back, she adds, "I wanna show you something before we go to sleep."

Instead of heading for the woods, Emma walks through dark alleys and empty streets until they reach the clock tower, and then climbs the stairs until they get to the top. Which is about five-billion steps. And she's carrying a tween on her back.

"Why are we here, Emma?" said tween asks, but the woman is bent over, panting, her hand pressed to her spleen. "God, you really need to work out more."

If looks could kill, Ben would be nothing more than a pile of ashes, after the glare Emma shoots him. "It's been a crazy few months; I haven't had time to hit the gym, thank you very much. And it's not like I carry a ninety-pound monkey around on a regular basis."

" _Hey_ -"

"Look." Interrupting the boy's protest, Emma points up, towards the sky. The tower is high enough that lampposts' light doesn't reach them, and the stars are shining bright above them. Leaning against the balustrade, Emma shows the boy every constellation she knows, explaining the myths behind each one and recounting how she used to look at the sky any time she felt alone, until the sun starts creeping up behind the edge of the forest.

* * *

It's funny, really, how someone with the ability to manipulate time can still lose track of it.

That's what's happened to Emma, during her companionship with Ben. She'd been so preoccupied with the boy that she _forgot_ to keep track of the days.

She's awakened on Saturday by something hitting her hard on the ribs. Trying to shake the shock off and make sense of the situation, she rubs her eyes tiredly and sits up. Ben is still asleep next to her, and the sky is only just lighting up… isn't it?

Emma is fully awake, now. She's up in a second, her gaze transfixed on the same sky she and Ben had been looking at twenty-four hours earlier – only now it's ominously different.

Almost-black cumulonimbus clouds cover any light the sun or the moon might be shining, making it impossible to tell if it's still nighttime or not; only sporadic bolts of lightning manage to illuminate Emma's surroundings enough for her to understand what's going on. Tree branches are whipping left and right uncontrollably, slaves to a raging wind charged with electricity. Looking down, she sees what woke her – a white sphere, about the size of an egg, is stuck in the protruding roots of the great oak tree that's been her and Ben's haven for the past days.

Bending down to see exactly what it is, she lets out a grunt when another one hits her in the back. She can feel the blood draining from her face.

Before she knows it, she is picking up Ben, careless of his sleeping state, and running for her life. She is careful to carry him in front of her, not on her back, though it's more tiring and it wakes him up immediately.

"'Ma?" he mumbles out, "w's goin' on?"

"Nothing, kid," she tries to reassure him, "just a hailstorm." Right on cue, the roar of thunder crashes through the night, making Ben jump and look around in concern. "Keep your head down!" she urges him, and hopes against hope that the balls of ice falling from the sky don't hit either of them in the head.

They find shelter underneath the colonnade outside the library just as the rhythmic _tock_ of hail pellets picks up the tempo. Poor Ben is shaking in Emma's arms, and the woman tries her best to calm him down – "It's nothing, it'll be over soon, very soon," – though she knows perfectly well that it's anything but.

Because she is pretty sure that today is _fucking_ October twenty-second, 1983.

She's barely managed to make Henry breathe regularly when the wind picks up yet again and Emma hears an all-too-familiar voice yell, "NO!"

Her head snaps towards the source of the voice; right in the middle of Main Street, a dark-haired woman is collapsing to the ground, lulled by the crashes of thunders and the maniac laughter of a red-haired woman floating mid-air.

Emma watches as Regina hurries over to the now-lifeless body, hears the desperation oozing from each word that leaves Zelena's mouth as she tells Regina who she is, why she has just killed Cora Mills and why she is about to kill her, too.

"You had the life _I_ deserved!" Zelena is yelling, the sky growing darker and the wind stronger every second. Right above her, Emma sees the clouds amass, swirling around each other in a spiral that seems to be getting closer and closer to the ground, and then she understands exactly what it is. "I was left alone to take care of myself while _you_ got everything. Everything! And just because I did not have the same power as _her_. Well, what good can ripping hearts out do, against this?" She lifts up her arms and lightning bolts erupt directly from her hands, raising until they reach the sky; the tornado that is still slowly-but-surely forming above them fills with sparkling arcs of electricity.

Emma turns to Ben. He's in shock, face tear-streaked and eyes stuck on what's happening in the street, but she doesn't have time to reassure him. She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him a little, just enough to get his attention. Then urgently she orders, "Run back home, kid. No matter how angry you are at your parents, just go home and don't leave-"

"I can't," he chokes out, and new tears spill from his eyes. "Emma, that's my mom…"

She's pretty sure her heart actually stops beating for a second. She can barely register the information and all of its implications, murmuring a, "Henry?" that is just as astonished as it is horrified, before a lightning bolt strikes, missing past-Regina by just a few feet. "Run to the lighthouse. Go. _NOW_!" She pushes Henry towards the woods and then looks back at what's going on.

Watching the scene that's unravelling in front of her, Emma waits. She waits for David to finally show up and help Regina, wonders what the hell is taking him so long and then realizes that she's probably being born, so he must be quite occupied.

But Zelena is growing angrier; she is seeping green mist – her only resemblance to Regina – and the tornado has almost reached the ground. She's throwing lightning bolts left and right, those huge grains of hail are still falling, and Regina is teleporting almost constantly to avoid them; but Emma knows how exhausting that is. Regina teleports one last time and falls to the ground, her shoulders raising and falling quickly with every breath she takes.

And Emma – well, she realizes that the 'No messing with the timeline' rule she has been trying to follow so rigorously doesn't seem all that imperative when the life of someone you love is at stake.

She snaps her fingers and everything stills. Her powers must be drawing energy from her fear, because she's never managed to stop time in a huge area.

The hail, the thunderbolts, the tornado – everything stops. Zelena looks around frantically, unable to understand what's happening, and gets back to the ground. Past-Regina doesn't seem to have noticed at all, still drained of stamina, and Emma takes advantage of that by walking out of her hiding place.

"Hey, Ginger Bitch!" she calls out, gaining Zelena's entire attention. "Guess what? Cora raised me too, and my power has nothing to do with Regina's."

That does it. Zelena starts stomping over to Emma, blinded by a primordial rage, and the blonde jogs away from Main Street, away from past-Regina, away from potential witnesses, Zelena predictably in tow. She intentionally walks in the direction of Mary Margaret and David's house and sees him hurrying over to where the tornado falls, which is an unbelievable stroke of luck, because she really needs to preserve her energy, if she's going to fight this psycho, and keeping the whole town stuck in time is taking a lot of energy out of her.

"Stop running, you coward!" she hears Zelena say, but she keeps going, only stopping once she reaches the woods.

"Emma!" another voice calls, and – _what the fuck is Henry doing here?!_

Her eyes widen in horror; the frantic beat of her heart increases even further, until her ears ring. She hopes against hope that Zelena didn't hear him, but knows how unlikely that is. And as if this was the right moment for that, the gravity of who the boy is dawns on her, leaving a chorus of _but he has dark hair and dark eyes_ , and _he's too small to be ten_ , and of _we've wasted so much time_. Now the time they have left might not be enough.

Thunder rumbles, and Emma is brought back to reality. Zelena has reached them; has seen the boy and the boy has seen her. Emma steps in front of him, a defensive pose that makes Zelena smile, because of course now she is going to do her best to hurt him.

"So you knew my dear mummy, didn't you?" she spits out, her words soaked in unadulterated bitterness.

"Nope, not at all. Never met the woman, only heard horrible stories about her." Zelena furrows her brow, the ire momentarily dimmed by obvious confusion. "Just needed you to get away from Regina."

The same sarcastic hilarity as before finds its way back to Zelena's demeanor. "Ah, I see. Very romantic, I must say."

"You know my mom?" Henry asks Emma, and despite the ten-or-so feet separating them, and Henry's low voice, Zelena's eyes land on him and her smile broadens.

"You're Regina's son?" she asks him. He doesn't respond, hiding behind Emma with a fearful look on his face.

Emma freezes. She can tell, somehow, what's going through Zelena's mind this very moment – harming those who Regina loves is going to hurt her much more than killing her. She doesn't know that 1983-Regina has no idea who Henry and Emma are, but if that is what's keeping her alive, Emma sure won't say a word.

A lightning bolt falls, aiming directly at Emma and Henry. She manages to snap her fingers just in time, the bolt stopping mid-air right above them and then returning to the cloud it came from. A foreign instinct takes over Emma – the desperate need to protect the kid behind her with her own life, mixed with the adrenaline-driven exhilaration of an upcoming battle. She knows she doesn't stand a chance, what with her power being exclusively defensive; she can't fight back, only delay what will be certain death. But if buying time is the only alternative to giving up, she will choose it a thousand times over.

So, she does just that – blocks every single attack Zelena sends her way – from tree branches and rocks torn by the wind, to lightning bolts and hail. She either teleports them away or manipulates time. It's starting to tire her, her limbs getting heavier by the second, but she persists… until it all stops.

Zelena stills, her arms raised up, and looks down, before collapsing to the ground. Behind her, Regina – present-Regina, Henry's mother and Emma's… _friend?_ – is holding something in her hand, a purple orb of light that seems to pulsate rhythmically.

A heart.

"Go away," she orders, her voice quivering with pain for her sister, anger for what she's done, and fear. "Leave Storybrooke and come back for your heart only after you've found peace. After your thirst for revenge has waned."

Zelena stands up, shoots her one last hatred-soaked glare, and helplessly does as she's told.

"Mommy?" a small voice behind Emma says, and a second later Henry is running into Regina's open arms. "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"Sweetheart, it's okay. I'm sorry too," she's saying, her hand smoothing down Henry's hair. They're both crying now, the kid's shoulders bouncing with every sob, and Emma-

Emma is crying too, she realizes after a beat. The relief of Zelena leaving, the confirmation that Ben is Henry and Henry is her son, the sight of Regina… it's all too overwhelming for her to hold it in.

"Emma…" Regina says, and their gazes lock. "I'm-"

"I wanted to come back the second I left," Emma blurts out. She takes a couple steps forward, feels a small hand holding hers. "But then I met Henry, and I didn't know it was him, so I couldn't get back to the lighthouse, and he was hurt, I couldn't leave him alone-"

Regina's lips on Emma's put an end to the conversation. One, two, three times their lips meet, chaste but meaningful and long-awaited kisses that make Emma's heart flutter like never before.

" _Eeeew_!" Henry exclaims, almost offended by the interaction, and Emma lets out a sobbing laugh and hugs him tightly.

Around them, lone branches are flying back to their trees, clouds are dissipating and the tornado in Main Street is slowly making its way back to the sky. "We need to go," Emma points out shortly after, "David has started rewinding time. If we stay here, by the time he stops it I won't be able to bring us back."

"Wait, you're from the future too?" Henry asks. His eyes widen comically when he connects all the dots. "Are you my birth-mother?"

Emma shoots a glance at Regina, who just smiles down at him and says, "Yes, sweetheart. But we don't have time for this. Emma, can you bring us back?"

The blonde nods. "I just need to do something first."

* * *

Ruby Lucas is walking towards the edge of town, her face just as grim as the tone of her voice. She's slightly out of breath, having just run over from downtown, and recounting what happened as delicately as possible.

Beside her, Mary Margaret is limping along, one hand hung over a doe's neck for balance, the other carefully, lovingly cradling a crying baby wrapped in a knit blanket. She's crying too, the weight of the decision she is about to make bending her over. Behind her, following in silence like a procession, is a parade of animals, from birds to foxes to wolves.

The sky has cleared, back to its original, cloudless state. A flock of swans is crossing it, though one separates from the rest and glides towards the ground, until it finally lands between the other animals.

The two women stop next to the 'Welcome to Storybrooke' sign, Mary Margaret leaning on it for support. She's sporting all the signs of a recent birth, not unlike the newborn in her arms.

"What did David say?" she manages to choke out, though her eyes never leave her baby.

"They're about to do it. Regina will do hers first."

Mary Margaret nods, though she can't suppress the sobs. "Did you call the ambulance?"

"They'll be here shortly," Ruby replies. "I'll give you a moment." She morphs into a wolf as if it's the easiest thing in the world, and walks back to the other animals, blending in like she belongs there.

"You are so loved, Emma. Mommy and daddy love you so much." It's hard to understand Mary Margaret's strained, broken voice, but Emma hears her well enough. "You will be fine. You're strong. You will find your way back to us, and we will be a family." The last word comes out strangled, and when the sound of ambulance sirens starts approaching, a new surge of tears escapes Mary Margaret's eyes. "I love you, baby girl. I love you."

She turns back and the swan approaches. Mary Margaret sets the baby between its wings, where cygnets normally would, and watches it as it steps over the town line and perches on the leafy side of the road. The other animals, all except for Ruby, follow, settling down around it to keep guard, just as a _boom_ echoes from the town center; a few seconds later, a burst of magic erupts from the core of Storybrooke and stops exactly at the town line. Regina's barrier is now protecting the city from outsiders, hiding it from the rest of the world.

Unseen, Mary Margaret watches helplessly, crying her heart out as the ambulance arrives and paramedics take the baby, confused by the animals but too preoccupied with the newborn's health to stop and think about them.

As the ambulance leaves and the animals scatter, behind the town line Mary Margaret falls to the ground, wolf-Ruby laying down beside her to comfort her.

Not too far away, hidden by shrubs and trees, Regina and Henry are doing the same with Emma; when another _boom_ resounds through the air, Emma closes her eyes, melts in their embrace and lets the darkness take over.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

AUTUMN 2011

The first thing Emma registers when she wakes up is a pounding headache – a borderline migraine to be exact, because she feels like her head could split in two at any moment.

She tries to lift her hands up and rub her temples, but something keeps her pinned down, so she opens her eyes.

It's nighttime, she deduces, though the light from the corridor, filtering through the open door, helps her make out what's inside the room.

A hospital room. She knows why she's here, knew it even before coming back to the present – she had never travelled through time with two other people, and doing it after having battled Zelena had completely sapped her energy. She hadn't thought she would make it out alive, but had taken the risk gladly.

To her left, David is snoring lightly, his hands loosely holding Emma's and his head resting on her bed, where a pool of drool is slowly forming on the sheets. It looks like the most uncomfortable position one could ever sleep in, and Emma already feels sorry for the back and neck pain he'll have tomorrow.

To her right, another hand is tangled into hers; sitting on a metal chair, looking away into space, with Henry on her lap sleeping soundly, is Regina, dark circles under her eyes and disheveled hair. She's wearing the same clothes she had on in 1983, so Emma figures she hasn't been in the hospital too long.

Before Emma can tell her she's awake, a voice from the doorway says, "Black with two sugars, right?"

Mary Margaret enters the room with two coffee cups. She hands Regina one before closing the door behind her and drowning the room in darkness.

"You still remember?" Regina mutters back.

Emma hears some shuffling and imagines Mary Margaret sitting in her own chair, next to David. Neither of them has noticed that she's awake. "You were very important to me, Regina," she says. "Never a mother; but the big sister I had always wanted, always looked up to." A sigh. "Despite everything, I still care about you."

"I killed your father."

"And I killed your boyfriend. I'd say we're even."

Regina chuckles bitterly. "It doesn't exactly work like that."

"I don't care. I want to bury the hatchet once and for all, Regina. If you don't want to do that for me, at least do it for Emma."

Regina keeps quiet, though the mindless movement of her thumb against Emma's hand reveals that she's lost in thought.

"Do you think she realizes," Mary Margaret ventures a little bit later, "how much everyone in this room loves her?"

"I think she's been alone for far too long to even contemplate the idea of it." A yawn follows Regina's words, and soon after she's saying, "Hello, sleepyhead."

"Mom? Did Emma wake up?" Henry questions, his voice thick with sleep.

At Regina's negative response, he climbs off of her lap and onto Emma's bed, nestling close to her like he did in 1983. He doesn't notice that she's awake, falling back asleep almost immediately, and somehow Emma is glad.

A few months ago, had she ended up in a hospital, her room would have been empty. She had no friends, no partner, no family. She barely had a job, and not even her boss cared about her.

What was that life like? Everything she remembers seems fuzzy, out of focus. Until _that_ fateful day, of course – that Wednesday when she first met Regina at her magic show and her life changed.

It's all perfectly clear, after that.

Mary Margaret's voice interrupts her trail of thought. "You should get some rest."

"You too."

"Not until Emma wakes up."

"And that makes two of us."

"You can both sleep, then," Emma finally croaks, her voice hoarse from lack of use. Regina's head snaps in her direction, and a second later bot her and Mary Margaret are fussing over Emma, asking questions she doesn't have time to answer, checking her temperature, fixing her pillow, waking Henry and David in the process, which means two more people hugging her and asking how she's feeling.

Emma is overwhelmed, and not entirely in a good way.

She's secretly glad when the nurse notices all the commotion in the room and asks everyone to leave, so that he can check up on Emma himself; and though it makes her feel ungrateful, she finds that it's the first time since she's woken up that she can actually breathe.

It's just a lot to take in, especially for someone who has just woken up from a coma after having battled a British maniac and witnessed her mother sending her away.

She can't fully wrap her head around the idea of having a family, not just yet. Not after twenty-eight years without her parents and ten without her son, not after denying herself love to avoid another heartbreak.

She… she needs to figure things out.

Which is why that following night, after everyone has fallen asleep, Emma teleports to Regina's house, packs up her stuff and gets in her VW.

* * *

She's running. Ultimately, it's the only thing she's good at, so why not do it? She needs to get away from Storybrooke for a while, and that's exactly why she's driving on the tree-lined road that leads to the outside world.

She's stopping the car much earlier than she'd expected. In the middle of the street, just before the city limit sign, is Mr. Gold, wearing that grin of his that always makes Emma's skin crawl; she has to slam both feet on the brakes to avoid running him over, and even so, she barely manages to stop in time.

"I hope you haven't forgotten our deal," he says as soon as Emma gets out of the car.

She runs a hand through her hair. "Actually I had, sorry. Who is it you need me to find? I won't be kidnapping anyone, right?"

"Well, technically that is a very plausible possibility," he retorts. "I want you to bring me Neal Cassidy."

Something in her guts moves, at the name. She feels nauseous, as if her body wanted her to vomit out every single repressed thought, memory and feeling even remotely related to that man.

So much for running away from her problems; now she's heading directly towards another one.

"Why?"

A giggle. "You'll see." A sparkle of knowing malice flashes behind his crazed eyes. "Don't worry, it has nothing to do with you nor Henry."

Emma's breath catches in her throat. He knows. "Can't you go find him yourself?" she asks, hoping to divert the focus of the conversation.

"Looking like this?" He waves his hand over his green, scaly body and, well, he has a point.

"How can you be sure that I will bring him back to you? I can think of about a million reasons why I shouldn't."

Gold's grin broadens even further. He hold up his hands, and in the middle of each palm, set into the skin like a gem into its support, is an eye, of the same golden hue as the ones on his face. "I saw it," he says, and he's gone before Emma can stall any longer.

* * *

When Emma had made that half-yearly contract with her landlord, never would she have imagined it would turn out to be actually useful. Now, after a month of being away without notice, she is unbelievably glad.

She opens her front door with keys that she hasn't used in what feels like forever. She can't help but find the apartment alien, after everything that's happened, and foreign. As if she no longer belonged there.

She stops in the doorway and looks around, recognizing the place but not as her own. Predictably, everything is exactly the way she left it, from the embarrassing amount of dust gathered on every surface to the open box of _Froot Loops_ on the kitchen counter; and yet, Emma can't manage to feel at home.

Memories of her last few days here come back, though she inevitably sees them under a different light. When Mary Margaret showed up, for instance – Emma had no idea she was looking at her birth-mother, the woman she's fantasized about since she was a small child, and to be fair, Mary Margaret hadn't known either. According to what she told her the previous day, she only started suspecting it after Emma broke the time bubble that enveloped Storybrooke, and even then, she wasn't entirely sure.

Thinking about their first encounter, Emma remembers hearing Mary Margaret talk to someone, and though at the time she had thought it might have been Regina, now she realizes it was probably a rat or a roach that had showed her where Emma lived and opened the front door for her.

She thinks back to not understanding how Regina got into her apartment, or into that Laundromat down Phillips Street. No matter how drawn she was to the woman, even at the very beginning, never would she have expected her to be her son's adoptive mother.

Now… now things – her life – couldn't be more different.

Taking a walk seems like the right way to clear her mind. She changes her coat – her favorite leather jacket is in rough shape after that week of living in the forest; good thing she has one in almost every color of the rainbow, so she picks her brown one to replace the red, grabs her laptop bag, and steps out of the building.

It's still dark out, even though it's almost seven. Several joggers zoom past her, as well as sporadic bike messengers, and Emma enjoys people-watching as she wanders aimlessly, relishing the brisk late-September air.

The sun is starting to rise, slowly painting sky and clouds orange, when Emma finds herself in front of the coffee shop where she first talked to Regina. She sits on a nearby bench and watches the dawn as she waits for the owner to open.

Much like everything she's experienced since returning to Boston, having breakfast in what used to be such a familiar place is odd. The best way she can describe how she feels is by comparing it to a vacation. As if she's visiting Boston for a limited amount of time, and will be going back home soon.

 _Home_. She wants to smack herself when the phrase ' _where the heart is_ ' inevitably comes to mind, but she can't deny that it's absolutely true. Her heart is not in Boston; it's in a formerly-non-existing town in Maine populated by magic users, including her equal-in-age parents, her long-lost son and the woman who adopted him (who, if things had gone down differently, would have also been her step-grandmother).

Emma won't give any of that up, she's sure of it. It scares her shitless – even contemplating the idea of being happy with her _family_ has her heart racing and her guts wrenched, because everything that's ever been good in her life she's ended up losing, and well, how could she possibly survive losing _them_? But regardless, she will hold onto it as tightly as she can.

Not that there's anything she can do about that, so why even worry about something out of her control? What's bound to happen will happen anyway.

She takes her laptop out of the bag instead, connects to the coffee house's Wi-Fi and starts looking for Neal Cassidy. She knows it will take her a long time – if he's anything like he was ten years ago, then he's probably still moving from town to town, hiding behind a fake name and making a living out of thievery. Someone like that knows exactly how not to be found, so Emma will be having a hell of a hard time. She will succeed, of course; finding people is her specialty. But she can't deny it will be tricky.

After hours upon hours of research, all of her favorite programs have led to a dead end. By six in the evening she hasn't found anything yet, and though she had expected as much, she's still a bit disheartened as she walks back home.

She fishes out her phone to check if she still has Neal's number, even though he's probably changed it a million times in the past ten years; when she unlocks it, however, she finds about a thousand missed calls, voicemails and texts, which take her aback to say the least. She isn't used to people caring about her, worrying.

Ultimately, she decides to open Regina's chat, since she only sent her one text, hours earlier:

 _At least let me know if you're okay._

Emma replies with a, _Don't worry_ , that really doesn't express a fraction of what she actually wants to say, and mentally slaps a hand to her forehead because of how dumb it sounds.

She's in her building now, unlocking her door, and when she opens it-

" _Don't worry_?! Do you not have any respect for me?!"

"R-Regina?" Emma is left speechless by the woman currently pacing her apartment, purple vapor leaking from her hands. At Emma's shock she rolls her eyes, and Emma is catapulted back to their first interactions. "Don't _eye-roll_ me!"

"How do you expect me not to? You left!" Regina throws her arms in the air for emphasis. "I get that you might have felt oppressed, but you could have waited until we woke up to say goodbye! Henry would have understood, he has grown attached to you but if you didn't want to be in his life you could have just said so-"

"Regina-"

"And your parents too! Yes, it would have hurt them, but how do you think running away made them feel?"

" _Regina_ -"

"And yes, I know I kissed you when I didn't have any right to, I just misread the signals, but again, I can handle a rejection! If you had an ounce of respect for me you would have told me-"

"I'm in love with you!"

The apartment is awfully silent after Emma's confession. She and Regina keep looking at each other for a moment, each processing what just happened; then, with the same pissed-off tone as before, Regina says, "Well, that makes you even more of an idiot, because I'm in love with you too!"

"Uh- what?"

Another eye-roll.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was my question stupid?" Emma quips, but she's taking several steps forward, until she's only a few feet away from Regina. "See, people are usually a little less angry when they tell someone that they love them, so pardon me for asking-"

"Shut up, Swan!" Regina says, and they're kissing a second later, this time much more passionately than back in 1983. It's fistfuls of hair and wandering hands and a tangle of legs, and it's everything Emma's ever dreamed. She can't get enough of Regina's plump, _so soft_ lips, of the silky skin under her shirt, of her wonderful curves. Can't get enough of the butterflies, of the heat that pools in her lower abdomen with every moan, and she knows she won't be able to stop if things continue escalating. Not that she wants to, of course; but she does think it's for the best.

"We should- _god_ ," she tries to say, but Regina is kissing her neck (and probably giving her a hickey, like a fucking fifteen-year-old) and Emma can't exactly… function. "Mmh, talk."

Regina's mouth detaches from her neck and Emma moans in protest; but then Regina is looking at her, her eyes almost black with lust, lipstick smeared and lips swollen, and it's the single most beautiful thing Emma has ever seen.

"Is that a request?" _Fuck_. Her voice is hoarse, her mouth is curved in a ravenous smirk and she is hinting at dirty-talking. Essentially, Emma could come undone right then and there.

She shakes her head, unable to do much more. Taking a step back and a deep breath, she finally says, "We need to talk."

Regina understandingly nods. She walks to the couch and sits down, graceful even with messed-up hair and half-open blouse. "Why did you leave, Emma?"

The blonde chokes out a laugh. "I'm absolutely terrified." The anxiety she had been repressing since leaving the hospital comes back in full force, and she finds herself on the verge of tears. She sits down next to Regina, who wraps her arms around her and gently, so gently, runs a hand through her hair repeatedly. It's soothing, a motherly gesture that Emma has never had the chance to experience.

"It's okay," she is saying, "talk to me."

And Emma does. She talks about her fear of losing everyone, of what would happen if she and Regina got into a relationship that Henry wouldn't approve of or, even worse, that he would. What would happen to him if they broke up? Besides, is Emma even ready to be a mother?

Then there's the whole parents-thing – Emma has never had any, she has no idea how to behave around them. The fact that they look as young as she does definitely doesn't help. Regina clearly doesn't get along well with Mary Margaret, which is another problem, and what if her own mother doesn't accept the fact that she and Emma are in love?

When she comes to the Neal part – the father of Regina's son, not Emma's and certainly not _his_ – even Regina is taken aback. What if Henry wants him to be a part of his life? Should they let him? He doesn't even know-

And, despite everything, Regina manages to reassure her in a way Emma never thought possible.

"You came back here because you were afraid of being hurt," she says, her voice soft, "but staying away is hurting you just the same, isn't it?" Emma nods. "So, if there's even the slightest chance of you being happy, why on Earth shouldn't you take the risk?"

* * *

It's almost midnight. Emma has been awake for almost twenty-four hours and the migraine is slowly coming back, but Regina beside her helps to keep it under control. Her mere presence is soothing to Emma – her own personal painkiller.

They had been researching for hours on end, trying to find Neal's current location. If it weren't for Regina's astute observations, it would have taken Emma at least another day; instead, by eleven thirty they had found him, and now they're out to get him.

Providence, Rhode Island is surprisingly menacing, at this time of night; the looming bulks of skyscrapers and the tangle of unknown streets fills the two women with unease. It takes them a good half-hour to get to their destination by foot, which really doesn't help the situation.

They break into his apartment building quite effortlessly (the lack of a building super definitely speeds things up) though the tapping of Regina's heels on the tiled floor makes any attempt at being undetected completely useless. At least if that turns out to be a problem, Regina can just rip the person's heart out and make them become a _hula_ dancer in Hawaii (ah, the wonders of compulsion!).

They climb a few flights of stairs, and after quite an emphatic session of rapping at his door (Regina doesn't like him very much, and Emma is absolutely _delighted_ ), a barely-awake but very pissed-off Neal opens up, and Regina is teleporting the three of them back to Boston before he can even say a word.

"What the fuck?!" he shrieks after landing in Emma's flat. "W- _Emma_? What's- _Madame Mayor_?!" Both women look at him, surprised that he recognizes Regina. Then he sighs, rubs his eyes and with the resigned tone of someone who has reluctantly accepted his doom, he inquires, "My father sent you, didn't he?"

"Your father? I thought you were…" _An orphan_ , Emma wants to say, but an erratic thought crossed her mind and now she can't seem to get rid of it. She's adding two and two together, but it _can't_ be.

" _You_ are Gold's son?" Regina asks, her voice brimming with an urgency that borders actual fear. This time around it's Emma who calms her down, despite her own disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me. That _imp_ knew all along about Henry, I'm sure. I bet he even knew about the adoption agency. And- perhaps Henry can control time like you, but also see the future like him, and these powers together allowed him to grow up in Storybrooke- _Gold knew all along_!"

"Regina. Calm down. We'll figure this out, okay?"

"How come you didn't age a bit?" Neal asks, not following the women's conversation. "I mean, I was five when I left Storybrooke, and you look the exact same."

Emma squints her eyes at him. "What year was it?"

"1983. September, I think. Can someone tell me what the fuck I'm doing here?"

"Gold must have seen Zelena's attack. Remember Mary Margaret and Ruby in the forest, back in 1983? They were talking about a prophecy…"

Regina nods her agreement. "I'm afraid that's exactly what happened." She sighs, glaring at Neal. "Please, tell me this is a nightmare."

"I wish." Turning towards Neal, Emma coldly says, "You need to come to Storybrooke with us. You don't have to stay, I just need you to meet Gold – not even talk to him. Just let him see you."

"You made a deal with him, huh?" Emma nods. "Well, I guess I owe you this much. Can I get a pair of pants or…?"

Emma's leggings materialize in front of him in a cloud of purple mist, and after suppressed complaints, the three of them get into Emma's bug, ready for the most awkward car ride of the century.

It goes well for the first hour, she and Regina chatting about mundane things – a welcome change from the heavy topics they normally tackle. They've just passed Portland when Regina falls asleep, head resting against the window and mouth adorably agape. Emma wishes she could rest herself, but since letting Neal drive is undoubtedly out of question, unsolicited small talk it is.

She endures a whole half-hour of it, of Neal telling her what he's been up to these past ten years and insisting she do the same. It's obnoxious and unnecessary, and it gets worse and worse as the minutes go by.

"When you told me about your powers," he begins at some point, and Emma already doesn't like where this is going, "I was terrified that I would have to go back to Storybrooke. That you had only been with me to bring me back to _him_."

"What made you change your mind?"

Emma can imagine him shrug in the backseat. "Time, I guess. I realized that, if my father had really sent you there, you wouldn't have wasted a whole year with me. You would have brought me back immediately."

"Wow," she laughs, "how insightful. You still left me in jail, though."

"They only gave you a year; I came to these conclusions long after. Wait a second- you didn't get out?" His shocked voice echoes inside the car. "Why didn't you get out, you have powers!"

They enter Storybrooke as he asks that question, and Emma has never been more grateful to see Gold. Granted, if he weren't, once again, in the middle of the street it would have been better, but still, she gets the chance to avoid telling Neal that she had no money to feed both herself and the baby growing inside of her. Prison meant food and a roof over her head, at least.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, Emma slams on the brakes (really, this man needed to lay off the dramatic appearances), and Regina wakes with a start.

Neal takes a deep breath. "Well, see ya," he bids, and reluctantly gets out of the car – in those ridiculous yoga pants that make Emma almost feel guilty for laughing. Almost.

Gold nods at her, and after father and son have been replaced by black smoke, Emma takes a deep breath, steeling herself for what comes next. "Alright, then. Let's go home."

"Actually, we need to go pick up Henry. He's at Mary Margaret and David's." At Emma's hesitant expression, she rectifies, "Or you could wait for us at home while I go get him…"  
"No," Emma replies. She needs to confront her parents, sooner or later, and now is as good a time as ever. "Let's go."

Mary Margaret and David live in a loft not far from Mifflin Street. Emma almost dreads seeing it, seeing the life they built without her, but she knows it's inevitable. When they arrive at apartment 19, however, a bright green sticky note on the door tells them that they're at _Granny's_ , so back in the bug they go.

It's two in the morning, but the diner is almost crowded. David, Henry and Mary Margaret are there, as well as Ruby and Granny of course, but Sheriff Humbert and Miss French, the librarian, are also there, chatting with a man Emma has only seen occasionally walking his dog.

She barely has time to open the door, the bell above it announcing her and Regina's arrival, before Mary Margaret is hugging her so tight Emma can barely breathe.

After a second of hesitation, the blonde closes her eyes and lets herself get lost in the hug. She mentally travels back to her childhood, to every time she had wished her mother were there to comfort her, and wordlessly hugs Mary Margaret back. She breathes in her floral perfume, revels in the feeling of her short hair tickling her cheek and her surprisingly strong arms around herself. It's been a long time coming and it will take a lot of getting used to, but it's her _mom_ , at last.

They break the hug after a while, and Mary Margaret's eyes are glistening with unshed tears. "I was so worried, honey," she says, "I thought Gold kidnapped you, or that Zelena was back…"

"I'm fine," Emma reassures her, "I just needed to clear my mind. Sorry I didn't tell you."

"Well, I guess we can't ground you, huh?" David quips, and Emma grins at him. They hug too, though it's a little less sentimental, mainly because, as she's learned during the past month, David is a goof. "Glad you're back, kid."

"Am I the only one who doesn't understand why we're here?" Regina ventures, gaining a glare from David.

"It's my fault," Henry pipes up, "I couldn't sleep, so grandma and gramps asked Ruby to open the diner and make me a hot chocolate!"

Emma watches the immense delight that takes over Regina's features when she sees just how uncomfortable those names made David and Mary Margaret; and Emma has a feeling that Henry used them on purpose, just to distract Regina from the part about the hot chocolate. Sneaky boy. She catches his gaze and winks at him.

"I would like to apologize to you." A small voice, marked by a thick accent (Australian, maybe?), grabs Regina's attention. "I was the one who told Henry about the adoption. I read your mind and Rumple convinced me to tell him, but I shouldn't have listened to him. It really wasn't my place, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Miss French," Regina replies, though it's stilted.

"I bet he did it so you would contact me," Emma tells Regina. She's thinking out loud, voicing her line of reasoning. "I was his only way to find Neal, and you were his only way to find me."

"Who's Neal?" a chorus of voices asks. Regina and Emma exchange a quick glance, but seeing how many problems keeping secrets has already provoked, they silently agree to tell the truth.

"He's Gold's son," Emma explains, "my ex-boyfriend and Henry's biological father."

She studies carefully Henry's reaction, though he doesn't seem particularly disconcerted by the information. "Do you like him, moms?" he asks. They're both taken aback by the noun he used to address them, though they both love it. Their negative responses make him nod resolutely, muttering a, "Good," that nobody really understands, until he adds, "this family is getting bigger by the second; it's hard to keep track."

And that's how the night goes. Henry clings to Emma and Regina like never before, and who can blame him? He's risked losing his mothers several times in the past few days.

He, Emma and David agree on meeting up for time-warping lessons, which will also give Regina and Mary Margaret a chance to put an end to a decades-long feud.

Regina introduces Emma to Archie, the best (and only) therapist in town, and the whole Swan-Mills-Blanchard-Nolan family decides to go for family therapy. God knows they all need it, especially Emma and Henry. Talking things through – that's the only way to live a healthy, happy life, and they will all do their best to make things easier for one another.

At some point, after a mind-blowing batch of chocolate-chip cookies and warm milk to go with them, Sheriff Hunter takes her to the side to talk in private.

"A while ago, Regina mentioned your name as my new deputy. I'd like for you to try it out."

Emma's eyes widen almost comically. "O-of course, I would love that. Uh, just to be clear – did she mention I'm an ex-con?"

"She did," he laughs. "Stop by the station tomorrow morning. Nine o' clock." He walks away and joins Mary Margaret and Granny's conversation.

Emma looks around, still unable to comprehend how exactly she got this lucky. She feels a hand slip into hers and soft lips against her cheeks. "Am I dreaming, Regina?" she whispers, because she still doesn't believe it.

A chuckle, warm and full of a love she never thought she deserved. "No, Emma. It's not a dream."

"Then what is it?"

Neil Diamond's _Sweet Caroline_ is playing on the radio, and David is swinging to music, Henry on his shoulders sneakily dropping cookie crumbs in Mary Margaret's hair. Regina grabs Emma's chin ever-so-gently, and the blonde gets lost in her bright eyes, full with the promise of a future together. They kiss, and against her lips Regina replies, "It's meant to be."


End file.
